What do the globalists do when they want to create, reignite and keep their war on terror fought indefinitely? They simply carry out a series of false flag attacks using Muslim terrorist stooges as their hired guns to do their damage. That’s what 9/11 was all about in the US, 7/7 in UK, the 3/11 train attack in Spain, the Hebdo Paris attack last January, and now this latest Paris encore reenactment part two.

In any unsolved crime the first question asked is who benefits by motive with an actual means to execute the crime?

In all of these tragic false flag events the global elite benefits in multiple ways. And it most definitely has the means by issuing marching orders to its owned and operated national governments, its favorite being the militaristic, brutal American Empire.

The elite’s agenda to polarize and destabilize the world politically and militarily manifests through the US foreign policy of regime change, nonstop war through divide and conquer methodology (i.e., Shiites vs. Sunnis, Euro-nationals vs. foreign migrants, Christians vs. Muslims, light skins vs. dark skins) and economic austerity through unpayable high interest from predatory IMF bank loans to debtor nations from both the developing and developed world.  Through global theft and destruction, the ruling elite reigns supreme in absolute power.

For decades after World War II US-NATO-Western European allies conspired and perpetrated state sponsored terrorism murdering their own citizens through a protracted series of Gladio operations originally designed to falsely accuse Communist groups in Italy. Spanning over thirty years with violent incidents throughout Europe and Turkey, Gladio-like false flag operations never stopped. Gladio at home took the form of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Operation Northwoods that JFK abruptly halted, partially resulting in his own self-undoing, killing the diabolical military plot of murdering innocent US citizens in Miami and Washington DC in order to blame and start a war against Cuba. The US especially but numerous governments have regularly engaged in false flag operations killing their own to trigger wars, shape public opinion, conceal and divert attention away from citizens ever catching on to the dirty lowdown truth.

The Friday the 13^th Paris massacres were highly organized, committed by heavily armed, closely monitored terrorist professionals unleashed onto an unsuspecting, culturally diverse group of young Paris victims. The coordinated attacks seem to carry all the earmarks as state of the art false flag terrorism having had lots of previous practice, most notably the Paris Charlie Hebdo edition. But the growing anomalies stacking up once again turn out to be no different from its predecessors.

All have promoted the same globalist agenda toward unlimited invasive authoritarian surveillance used to bring about increasing draconian measures in order to gain absolute tyrannical control over the populace. At the same time it exploits xenophobia and islamophobia amongst its citizenry that in turn increase hatred and tensions laying the groundwork for potential civil war. Today the elite is skillfully working its proven divide and conquer formula perfectly. In one fell swoop it creates the unstable conditions fomenting civil unrest and violent backlash that then increasingly justify oppressive, over-the-top counterterrorism and police state tactics that obliterate human rights.

Finally, false flag terrorism launches a militarized backed by a globally legislative crackdown targeting all dissidence and activism exposing the governments’ false narrative of lies and propaganda, labeling and criminalizing the dissenting truth as homegrown terrorism.

The surreptitiously obtained Syrian passport found so quickly after the fact in Paris has become a false flag trademark used in both Charlie Hebdo and 9/11. Because this pattern proved a serious liability for establishing any credibility, it was later disclosed that the passport actually came off the body of “a Syrian refugee,” as if that made MSM any more believable.

Even before the passport fiasco, the alleged terrorist’s quote from a supposed witness “this is for Syria” was obviously disclosed by mainstream media to shape and manipulate public opinion into quickly blaming Syria, ISIS and Syria’s targeted leader Assad. And then long before any of this alleged (dis)info began surfacing, barely an hour into the attacks while still actively underway, President Hollande kept repeating three times in the next several hours what appeared to be his scripted lines already declaring that France was at war against already identified terrorist attackers from Syria before any investigation had even begun. This rapid sequence of events smacked of false flag.

Furthermore, like the Hebdo attack earlier this year, reports immediately commenced disclosing that French intelligence had long been tracking the perpetrators prior to the attacks. Former antiterrorist judge Marc Trevidic in a Sunday interview claimed that French authorities knew of an impending terrorist attack being planned by Islamic State jihadists “at a French rock concert” as early as August.

The judge had cross-examined militants three months earlier who revealed this rather critically important piece of information. This strongly suggests French intelligence had prior knowledge of the Friday night massacres. Turkey also warned the authorities in France twice about one of the three alleged suicide bombers but The Guardian reported that France only contacted Turkey for information after the Paris attacks. Again, it seems more than plausible that French security forces knew about the planned attacks but purposely failed to stop them or may have even played a sinister role in allowing them to occur.

A couple of other striking parallels with 9/11, when the BBC reporter announced that Building 7 went down 20 minutes prior to the event, the Paris attack was described on twitter dated a full two days in advance of the November 13^th killings. Also Wikipedia within two hours from the very onset of the attacks already had posted a fully detailed account complete with footnotes specifying “Syria” being mentioned by a witness, “5 or 6 terrorists”, and “3 suicide bombers” all from the get-go pointing to the big bad Muslim villains yet again. The clinching evidence was Wikipedia running an early story version at 23:06 specifying:

     In a televised statement at approximately 23:58 (local time), French President François Hollande declared

     a state of emergency and closing of borders for the whole of France.

For that announcement on Wikipedia to be made nearly an hour prior to Hollande’s actual statement could suggest that Wikipedia was in fact being used by the French authorities as an information disseminator of a preplanned event, right away establishing an official narrative from the outset that Arab terrorists from Syria were the guilty murderers behind the attacks far in advance of the start of even a preliminary investigation.

It’s also been recently learned like in several previous false flags that security forces in Paris were simultaneously undergoing another live action emergency drill earlier that same day (as in Charleston, Baltimore, Boston, 9/11). Patrick Pelloux, an emergency medical services specialist and one of the first responders to the attacks, confirmed in a radio interview that a live drill had been conducted that morning of the 13^th. These co-occurring government events timed perfectly to overlap so called acts of terrorism cannot be considered purely co-incidental.

Adding more weight to the false flag suspicion is the fact that just two weeks prior to Friday’s attack on October 29^th CIA Director John Brennan met with his French counterpart along with UK’s MI6 former chief and former Israeli national security advisor. Additionally on Monday Brennan admitted that the international intelligence community expected a terrorist attack in Europe. Just as the Islamic terrorist mercenaries always “accidentally on purpose” leave their calling cards behind, so are the dirty CIA-Mossad fingerprints left indelibly written all over virtually every state sponsored terrorism on this planet. For years it’s been repeatedly demonstrated that US and Israeli intelligence forces have been covertly working directly with the Islamic State jihadists. NSA documents show that ISIS leader El Baghdadi was trained by Mossad. A recently captured IDF colonel was caught leading Islamic State forces. Overwhelming evidence has proven the US-Israeli-Saudi-Turkish-Gulf State connection to ISIS terrorists, documenting this intimate partnership in the manufactured war on terror.

In late September after Putin outed Obama’s fake war against ISIS at the UN, then throughout October actually destroying ISIS where Obama only pretended, the lost face of a humiliated Emperor’s new clothes turned US war policy in the Middle East completely topsy-turvy. Obama’s dubious leadership sank to an international all-time low when Putin exposed America’s deliberately failed MENA policy. Allied nations were cutting their losses and announcing plans to pull out of Syria. US Empire of Chaos and Destruction was fast losing its global control, its coercive power to subjugate its Euro-puppets into blind submission seriously and overtly eroding.  On top of that, while Europe is still reeling from the refugee mass migration crisis directly caused by the US imperial aggression, they were marveling over grandmaster Putin’s bold stroke of finally kicking some Islamic State ass. Stalwart US Euro-ally Germany was already shifting gears warming its relations with Russia, unwilling to follow Washington’s disastrous lead down doomsday road.

So what do the neocon goons in full damage control mode come up with?

While US-Israel are holding joint military exercises in the Sinai desert, did they coordinate with ISIS to make sure it shoots down the Russian airliner as immediate Putin payback?  Then came Defense Secretary Carter’s Russia bashing threats from the Ronald Reagan Library followed just hours later a few miles away with the Trident missile’s Saturday night LA bright light show seen around the world as an exclamation threat to Russia and China to back off from challenging US Empire’s global hegemony.

The DC warmongers are growing increasingly desperate, afraid of losing both their full spectrum dominance in the world as well as their precious proxy terrorist ally while Putin’s aid to Assad is putting the final kibosh on their fanatical OCD regime change operation.

So Brennan meets up with French and Israeli intelligence to conjure up the next Paris false flag. And since Hollande’s been Washington’s loyal go-to lackey with Hebdo already under his belt, heading up France’s active role in the imperialistic assault on both Libya and Syria, with Paris terrorism #2 France now becomes US Empire’s key catalyst to pull off another massive 9/11-like attack, in fact the biggest in France since WWII and be the justified driving force behind this newest “coalition of the willing” stepping up its next phase of war in Syria against both Assad and Putin. US bombs being dropped over Syria are now being joined by bombs from French jets as well as Israeli and Saudi warplanes. Timed purposely on the heels of the Paris tragedy, the ongoing G-20 meeting with the world’s most powerful nations in Turkey has turned into a war council to drum up intensified world war effort against nemesis Assad and Putin.

But the Western bombs are making sure that they do not destroy ISIS nor ISIS-controlled oil refineries selling black market oil to NATO member Turkey. Nor are they attacking the critical ISIS supply line in northern Syria that extends back into Turkey. It’s all too obvious that a renewed, heavily fortified allied offensive aggressively going head-to-head with Syrian and Russian forces clearly risks igniting a broader War.

Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.”  It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. He now concentrates on his writing and has a blog site at http://empireexposed.blogspot.co.id/

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In light of recent events and the tragic loss of life, the mainstream press has carefully avoided acknowledging the fact that the Islamic State (ISIS) is supported and financed by several of France’s closest allies.

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When terror struck New York in September 2001, what should have been a police operation to arrest Bin Laden instead became a new Thirty Years’ War.

None of us are any more secure for it, argues Nick Matthews.

Following Tony Blair’s non-apology over Iraq recently I thought back to when I first realised that he was mad.

It was at the Labour Party conference in Brighton in 2001 after the September 11 attacks and the speech when he said:

“This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken.

“The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us.”

When I heard this I thought this bloke is a megalomaniac and my legs refused to draw me into an upright position and I was left the only person in my row not joining in the standing ovation.

Upon leaving the hall I was asked by a journalist what I thought about the speech. I said that it reminded of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, written in the 11th century and brought to Victorian English readers by Edward Fitzgerald.

“AH, LOVE! Could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire!
Would not we shatter it to bits-and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!”

—The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The speech had a similar rhythm to its quatrains and it contained the same moral ambiguity. Needless to say he gave me a funny look.

This speech was essentially a version of one Blair had given in Chicago in 1999, labelled the “Blair Doctrine” by US commentators. It was as Gore Vidal so clearly articulated the case of “perpetual war for perpetual peace.”

That speech in Chicago was a game-changer because it completely cut the ground from under the Democrats in opposing George W Bush and his later adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Blair gave Bush the language he himself did not have.

Brighton was Blair at the very peak of his oratorical powers. In the previous paragraph, he had said:

“The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause.”

Nowadays his follower David Cameron is not so keen on welcoming those huddled masses to our shores.

What should have been a job for the police to arrest Bin Laden — who it now appears was hiding in plain sight — has turned in to a Thirty Years’ War that covers the entire area Blair so poetically described.

What amazes me about many contemporary politicians especially those who talk about “abroad” is how ignorant they are. Something has gone badly wrong here.

We used to govern a fair chunk of the world’s surface and yes it may well have been for the wrong reasons but we knew what was going on in the world.

Now we hear politicians of all colours talking complete nonsense about international relations in a way that is symptomatic of the neoconservative world view: international relations should not be decided upon using mere facts. We must first shape the facts and then the world, to our heart’s desire.

The greatest exponent of this shape-shifting before Blair and the dodgy dossier was George W Bush’s head of Strategy Karl Rove.

In an interview with Ron Suskind of the New York Times he said that guys like Ron were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.

“That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued.

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out.

“We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Initially David Cameron was not a neocon. He was from an earlier school of conservative political realism.

He had been a reluctant supporter of the Iraq war and had been critical of Israel.

On achieving the top job however it did not take long. He too became a neocon, and with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy led the way in the intervention in Libya. Only two years ago he would have intervened militarily against President Bashar al-Assad if Parliament had not stopped him.

Mr Cameron regularly seeks advice from Blair who was one of those urging him to bomb Libya. In foreign policy Cameron can be seen as Blair’s protege.

They are both solid supporters of the Gulf dictatorships, of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel and are totally hostile to democratic movements within Islam, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now not a week seems to go by without some dictator crossing the No 10 threshold.

Then there is Chilcot — Cameron has clearly protected Tony Blair. This inquiry was meant to publish its conclusions within 18 months of the British withdrawal from Iraq in 2007 and we are still waiting. And what happened to the investigation into British complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition during the Blair premiership?

Listening to many Labour MPs including, sad to say, Mike Gapes and John Woodcock, recently they have clearly been bitten by the neocon bug.

To his credit Ed Miliband was trying to move Labour away from this position. By opposing intervention in Syria and by whipping Labour MPs in support of a Palestinian state.

In a foreign policy speech before the election he made the case for the rule of law, international institutions and diplomatic engagement, and against the idea of US exceptionalism.

This work is now being carried on by Jeremy Corbyn who is now Britain’s finest advocate for human rights and we must not let him stand alone against this empire of lies.

On hearing Tony Blair back in 1999, that old hawk Henry Kissinger had said he “felt a little bit uneasy” about the implication that this was a good moment to solve every problem in the world.

We should all be uneasy if the world continues to be shaped by people with a wanton lack of concern for the truth, human rights and life itself.

Those who criticised the way Tony Blair took the UK to war may reflect that the present Prime Minister expresses similar sentiments.

Here at Westminster, in the motherland of parliamentary democracy, David Cameron has announced that as far as he is concerned it is not necessary to get the consent of the United Nations to start British bombing in Syria.

Of course, that is a repeat of the transition to war adopted by Tony Blair in 2003. It was an apparent flagrant sweeping aside of the authority of the UN. So it is again. The bigger picture is different, but there is one disturbing similarity between Blair and Cameron’s reasoning.

In 2003 Tony Blair had been told by the then US President George W. Bush that if there were to be political hassle for him (Blair) then there was no need to send in the British forces.  Political support would be just fine.

Blair believed that if the UK military was not on the start line then his famed support of the US after 9/11 would be meaningless.

He must have also known that Britain and he personally would be seen as what Dean Rusk, the former US Secretary of State, called “a nation that had lost an empire but had not found a role in the world”.

Blair would be a second-team player. Nice guy, but what the White House would always see as someone in the ‘unsigned’ Christmas card column.

And Cameron? Go back to the intervention in Libya. There is every indication that Cameron joined the operation there in a hurry because the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy was leading on this, had decided to go in and that Cameron was being left behind. That could not happen again.

So Cameron told the Commons this lunchtime that whatever the UN said, and presumably however his law officer the Attorney General described the legality of bombing, he (Cameron) would be going to the House to say the UK was joining the US, France & Co.

Coded, secret, encrypted technology is a boon for the privacy world. For security officials and government figures, it is perceived to be the enemy, the retarding effect against decent law enforcement, policing and general terrorist detection.

The fear on their part is ubiquity, encryption’s democratic tendency: Any one of us can download encryption programs and employ it in the context of communications. Telegram, one such platform, is supposedly being used by Islamic State, though it has been suggested by Dan Frookin at The Intercept that communications between the terror suspects behind the Paris attacks did not use encrypted technologies.[1]

That fact has not deterred officialdom aggrieved that individuals, who seem to have been communicating in the clear light of day, managed to plan their attacks under the noses of some of the most supposedly sophisticated surveillance networks. Because they were not detected in time, they must have been undetectable all along, looming large in the dark.

Instead of learning from that school of hard knocks, the establishment reaction to the Paris attacks has been one that will have lawyers and civil liberty defenders mounting the soapbox in dismay.  Law makers are wondering if encryption – its impenetrable use – was the problem to begin with.  From Washington to Paris, legislators are now chewing over the issue that is, in reality, a non-issue in any democratic context: Do we undermine encryption altogether?

This mentality was already evident in the words of Robert Litt, legal denizen for the Officer of the Director of National Intelligence.  Having taken a battering on the encryption front from those tedious defenders of liberty, he expressed views in a September email that he, and his frustrated colleagues, were facing a “legislative environment” which was “very hostile”. That said, “it could turn in the event of a terrorist attack or a criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.”[2]

The point missed here is that banning such technology will be akin to putting cooking knives away because they can be used to cut up the neighbour.  Mechanisms, not in themselves moral or otherwise, will always be put to some nefarious use.

Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of Counterpane Internet Security Inc. of Cupertino, California, made the salient if trite observation back in August 2003 (Computer News) that, “Infrastructure is used by good guys and bad guys. There are so many more good guys than bad and we’re better off with the infrastructure than without it.”

The sentiment against solid encryption means that intelligence agencies are not doing what they had previously done: cultivate local contacts, establish trails, create networks of contacts.

More government access means total access; nudging the argument in favour of snooping loses the basis for viable privacy.  It means that data get easier to pilfer, making commercial pillage in the digital world irresistible.  Companies such as Apple and Google, who have provided consumers the means to encrypt their data on iPhones and Android phones, will provide resistance, concerned that they will lose their patrons.  US companies are under enough pressure as it is about how reliable their means of holding information on consumers is.

Then come those activists who, working in dangerous environments, utilise such encryption in their communications to harry governments, or at the very least exist under them with some modicum of safety.  The reasons behind Philip Zimmermann’s creation of Pretty Good Privacy, a public key encryption scheme for email, was the offspring of peace activism.

Human Rights Watch, in a news release on June 17 this year, also emphasised that governments should encourage “the use of strong encryption and protect anonymous expression online.  In an era of unprecedentedly broad and intrusive government surveillance, these tools often offer the only safe way for people in repressive environments to express themselves freely.”  In this regard, supposedly free world defenders align themselves with the police state philosophers, mistrusting activists as potential lawbreakers and terrorists.

The CIA Director, John Brennan, has been undertaking his own crusade against the encryption defenders.  Before the Centre for Strategic International Studies, he claimed that, “There are a lot of technological capabilities that are available right now that make it exceptionally difficult, both technically as well as legally, for intelligence security services to have the insight they need to uncover it.”[3]

What Brennan fails to mention is that the National Security Agency has, for years, attempted to undermine end-to-end encryption, encouraging inferior technologies, tapping into existing ones, and encouraging friendly intelligence agencies to do the same.  It has discouraged human agency on its own part over technological usage on the part of everybody else.  Sloth has replaced incentive.

FBI Director James Comey and New York City Police commissioner Bill Bratton have also made similar points, with the latter claiming that, “We’re seeing it everyday where we are losing the ability to gather intelligence.”  Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) has decided to bite the bullet on that score and suggest the availability of back door access.  “It’s time we had another key that would be kept safe and only revealed by means of a court order.”

The final point here is one of possibility.  You cannot stop encryption, notably commercial encryption.  You can retard technologies to your disadvantage, implementing local bans, and inhibiting the take up at a domestic level. (At best, this would only succeed in a very limited way.)  The result is the advantaging of others.  The great dilemma lies there, and the security conscious communities might end up rendering themselves unconscious in this enterprise.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has repeatedly claimed that Abenomics, represented by ‘Three Arrows’ of reform, is his highest policy priority. However, his government’s controversial passing of the Security Bills suggests that a higher priority is the unpopular goal of re-establishing jishu kenpō (自主憲法), an ‘independent constitution’ in place of the US drafted ‘imposed’ Constitution. This ideologically driven project, not economic reform, has been the real focus of the Abe administration.

Commentary

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came into power for a second time in 2012 with an economic programme purportedly based on three ‘arrows’ of reform: monetary expansion, fiscal stimulus, and structural reform. The first two arrows of monetary and fiscal stimulus were supposed to pave the way for a crucial third: the long-term structural reform that has eluded Japan over two decades of economic stagnation. However, three years into Abenomics, the Third Arrow is nowhere to be seen.

The renowned economist Mitsuharu Ito argues in his book, Critique of Abenomics: Breaking the Four Arrows, that Abenomics is not only misguided as economic policy but also not a genuine priority of Abe’s. Instead, Ito claims, Abe’s programme contains a hidden ‘Fourth Arrow’ of political reform: the amendment of the existing Constitution and the ‘reform of post-war politics’.

The Fourth Arrow

Ito contends that the defining stance of the Abe administration, which he describes as ‘an exceptionally extreme right-wing administration’ in post-war Japan, is its denial that Japan’s actions in China leading up to the Pacific War constitute an invasion. Indeed, Abe refused to use ‘invasion’ or even ‘act of aggression’ to refer to Japan’s historical actions in China in recent statements about the War. Abe’s right-wing views are more evident in his books, personal statements and actions such as his visit to the Yasukuni Shrine than in official policy statements.

As John Dower has illustrated brilliantly, the American Occupation left largely intact, for Cold War reasons, the political, economic and ideological elite that had led Japan to war, played down Japan’s transgressions in China and Korea, and left territorial issues with them arising from the war unresolved.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that has ruled Japan almost continuously since 1955 contains a high concentration of the scions of Japan’s wartime leadership among its elite. Its co-founder was Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, architect of Japan’s Manchukuo policy. Kishi was detained as a ‘Class A’ war crime suspect after the War but then released as a promising Cold War ally against Communist China.

Like his grandfather, Abe promotes a strong anti-China stance, that draws on US support, towards the goal of re-militariing Japan. As critics, including Ito, argue, the establishment of the right of collective self-defence is but a step towards the larger goal of dismantling Article 9. He defied massive popular opposition and circumvented Article 9’s disavowal of ‘the right of belligerency of the state’ to pass the Security Bills by first changing the interpretation of the Constitution through a cabinet decision.

Abe has planned constitutional change for many years. Under his leadership in 2007, the Diet passed an Act that clarified for the first time the steps needed to amend the Constitution. He has also often argued that the majority required for constitutional amendment specified by Article 96 should be lowered from the current 2/3rds.

Abe’s own intentions echo Kishi’s closely and confirm Ito’s ‘Fourth Arrow’ thesis. Abe argues that constitutional amendment is crucial to achieve his oft-stated ambition of a ‘break-away from the post-war regime’. He vows to do everything in his power to make this happen. The ‘possession of a self-defence army’, he argues, should be inserted into Article 9, because Japan needs to defend the life, property, and territory of its citizens in order to become a ‘normal nation’.

Constitutional revisionism

In his book, Towards a New Country, Abe recalls the LDP’s founding objectives of post-war economic recovery and the enactment of jishu kenpō. While the former has been achieved, the latter, he says, has been neglected. He explains that the intention of the Americans in drafting Japan’s current Constitution had been to ‘bind Japan’s arms and legs so that Japan can never rise again as a world power’ and that Article 9 was inserted ‘so that Japan could never again challenge the Euro-American centered order’.

‘The use of the right to collective self-defence,’ Abe explains, will mean Japan ‘becomes an equal of the US, rather than a subordinate’. Abe also states that ‘there is no room for diplomatic negotiation’ to resolve the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands issue and that only ‘physical force’ is needed.

According to Abe, the ‘bone structure of Japan’ (the Constitution) needs to be re-created by Japanese people from scratch. He explains that his slogans ‘to break away from the post-war regime’ and ‘to take back Japan’ mean ‘to take back Japan from its post-war history and put it in the hands of Japanese people’.

As Ito and others point out, holding these revisionist and revanchist views within the context of the special relationship with the US results in a deep ambivalence towards the East Asian security status quo that Abe says needs to be defended against China. 

Abe and his ideological circle hold fast to the Security Treaty with the US while nurturing a multi-generational project to reverse the resented ‘post-war regime’ of which the Security Treaty is a pillar. Starting with constitutional change, they aim to restore a pre-war ideal of Japan and its place in the world.

Stage Two of Abenomics?

On 24 September 2015, soon after the Security Bills passed the Upper House in Japan, Abe announced that Abenomics had now ‘entered its second stage’. Stressing that economic policy continued to be his highest priority, Abe unveiled a vague set of ‘New Three Arrows’ of ‘hope,’ ‘dream,’ and ‘peace of mind’.

On the same occasion, however, he also stated that his campaign platform for the next Upper House election would be the amendment of the Constitution. A new Constitution that would define ‘the ideal shape of 21st century Japan’ must be, he said, ‘drawn by our own hands’. He referred to the draft for a new Constitution that had been completed in 2012 under former LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki.

The text of this draft erases the Constitution’s ‘never again’ repudiation of war and revives key features of the Meiji Constitution. The Emperor is once again head of state rather than ‘a symbol’. A ‘National Defence Army’ is back, with the prime minister as commander-in-chief and with its own tribunal. Popular sovereignty and civil rights are curtailed.

Exceptions to the separation of religion and state are carved out for ‘social’ and ‘customary’ practices, which, critics contend, are likely to include official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. To its proponents the new constitution will restore the ‘ideal shape of Japan’ before it lost the War. The ‘ideal shape of 21st century Japan’ that Abe and the LDP envision is that of an idealised 1930’s Japan.

Naoko Kumada is a Research Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Chicago media outlets are reporting that drones have been banned from most of Chicago’s skies and cannot fly over you or your property without your permission. The text of the ordinance, however, makes exceptions for police that will require eternal vigilance.

Local legislative action around drones began in U.S. cities in early 2013 with the public demand for resolutions opposing foreign drone murders by the military and CIA (and related training in U.S. skies), combined with public concern about domestic U.S. police departments that had begun acquiring weaponized and surveillance drones. This quickly expanded to include concerns about private drones — among other reasons, because surveillance footage from private drones could be acquired by governments. As near misses between drones and passenger aircraft began piling up, those issues of safety were added to the mix.

Chicago has now passed a modified version of an ordinance that forbids any drone “that is equipped with a firearm or other weapon” and any drone flown “with intent to use such small unmanned aircraft or anything attached to it to cause harm to persons or property.” The new law also bans any drone flight “for the purpose of conducting surveillance, unless expressly permitted by law.”

Then come the exceptions: “nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit any person who is authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration . . . .” And: “nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the use of a drone by a law enforcement agency in accordance with Section 15 of the Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act, codified at 725 ILCS 167/1 et seq., or its successor provision.”

That Illinois law allows police to use drones whenever they claim there is “a high risk of a terrorist attack” or they obtain a 45-day warrant from a court, or they decide they don’t have time to bother obtaining a warrant and must act swiftly “to prevent imminent harm to life or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect or the destruction of evidence,” or they’re attempting to locate a missing person but not undertaking a criminal investigation, or they’re solely doing crime scene or traffic crash scene photography (with a warrant if on private property), or there is a disaster or public health emergency (which need not have been formally declared).

None of that explicitly allows weaponized drones for police, except in so far as the word “terrorist” is generally taken to allow just about anything. So, does Chicago’s ban on weaponized drones remain intact for police? I’m pessimistic. I don’t think the ban on entering the sky over private property or flying at night or flying drunk or any of the other bans survive for police. The law says “nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the use of a drone by a law enforcement agency. . . .”

How police drone use works out, I think, depends entirely on how the state law is interpreted and enforced. Who will monitor police drone use? Who will punish violations? The new Chicago ordinance includes penalties: “Any person who violates this section or any rule promulgated thereunder shall be fined not less than $500.00 nor more than $5,000.00 for each offense, or may be incarcerated for a term not to exceed 180 days, or both. Each day that a violation continues shall constitute a separate and distinct offense.” But that sounds like a penalty for an individual, not a government agency.

I’m afraid what has been created is a policy of restricting drone use by individuals in Chicago, without effectively restricting it by the entities most likely to violate rights, intimidate, restrict ability to exercise free speech or assemble or petition the government for redress of grievances, and to use unjustifiable force.

This question is far from settled. Chicago is only one city. Other cities and states could choose to clearly ban weaponized drones, and to ban police surveillance drones under a clear system of supervision, oversight, and accountability.

While the mainstream media, led by the diligent ‘team’ at CNN, were busy spinning-up their ‘official’ conspiracy theory about magic passports lying around at scene of the Paris Attacks, 21WIRE told its readers and listeners that it might be prudent to question this obvious weak link in the official story.

As the ‘Syrian Passport’ meme spread like wildfire through the western media and various political corridors, a viral wave was triggered – and mass hysteria swept through western political institutions, prompting calls to shut European borders, and was predictable seized upon by Republican Party candidates in the US who were all-too eager to assuage the fears of their supporters and constituents who were worked-up into a frenzy by an irresponsible mainstream media. Some marginal GOP presidential candidates even called for shutting America’s borders.

MAGIC PASSPORT: Fake, and planted at the scene.

As 21WIRE pointed out previously, just as the media unveiled its Magic Passport leg of the story last Saturday, no sooner did they withdraw it, before taking rear guard action claiming that the passports were ‘fake’, or forgeries. For anyone with a brain, this should have been a huge red flag, but for the legions of overpaid media operatives – it was just another blind turn in an increasingly unbelievable story.

Meanwhile, we continued asking questions like: even if the passports are indeed fake, then how could police be certain that the passport’s carrier was the same as the passport’s legitimate owner? How can they be sure the ‘fake’ passports were not planted at the scene, or did not belong to someone else, a bystander for example? Could the crime scene have been tampered with before or after the event?

As it turns out, someone agrees with us. While the hopeless brain trust at CNN, FOX (and the rest) have filled up lucrative air time by hyping up a highly contrived link between the Paris Attacks and the Migrant Crisis, this washed up between the headlines…

According to this latest story from Bloomberg News, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has revealed that Syrian passport found next to the alleged ‘suicide bomber’ in the Paris terror attacks may have been planted.

“There are indications that this was a planted lead, but it still can’t be ruled out that this was indeed an IS terrorist posing as a refugee,” he told reporters in Berlin on Tuesday.

So this leads to the only conclusion which actually holds water in the real forensic world (not the imaginary corporate media-generated circumstantial one):

Reports that the identity in the passport may have been registered in several countries along the so-called Balkan route raise the suspicion that it could be a deliberate attempt to implicate refugees and “make people feel unsafe,” de Maiziere said.

As we informed our readers yesterday, what’s most important here is that the lack of any real evidence in this case (outside of assumptions and speculations) effectively destroys the fabricated talking point which has joined together this ‘ISIS terrorist’ event together with the ‘Migrant Crisis’.

In other words, if you still believe the mainstream media’s version of events – then you’ve been duped.

Meanwhile, a wave of faux hysteria is drowning American political discourse, making the new “Syrian Refugee Scare” the latest, greatest political ‘wedge issue’ since gay marriage and abortion – seemingly tailor-made for the ongoing 2016 Presidential election circus in the US.

The following is a letter from Matthew Mead, the Governor of Wyoming, sent yesterday and marked to the attention of President Barack Obama:

PDF version of the letter here: President+Obama+Refugee+Letter-Wyoming

According to beltway grapevine, yesterday, some 30 state governors were involved in a conference call demanding the same as governor Mead has laid out in his letter. The White House tweeted back, “Welcome Refugees”…

While ‘Conservatives’ might be irate about this latest supposed crisis, they, and others like them, should know that they are being manipulated by the very party who planted the fake passport at the scene of the crime. Failure to grasp this important reality means that you will be doomed to be carried away in the current tsunami of fear and war rhetoric.

Readers should also be reminded that the French security services and government planners were holding as ‘mass casualty’, multi-agency drill in the city center – on the the same day as last week’s alleged ‘terrorist’ attacks in Paris.

What’s most disturbing is just how predictable the modus operandi of these types of false flag events has become, as is the accompanying agenda which normally follows them, and as we can now see, its normally based on a lie.

Capitalizing on the fear they’ve created, the Establishment and their many political leaders are now demanding a wider war in the Middle East. All they need is a pretext.

Don’t let them have it.

A US-led raid on the compound housing the Islamic State’s ‘chief financial officer’ produced evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt with ranking ISIS members, Martin Chulov ofthe Guardian reported recently.

Islamic State official Abu Sayyaf was responsible for directing the terror army’s oil and gas operations in Syria. Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) earns up to $US10 million per month selling oil on black markets.

Documents and flash drives seized during the Sayyaf raid reportedly revealed links “so clear” and “undeniable” between Turkey and ISIS “that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara,” a senior western official familiar with the captured intelligence told the Guardian.

NATO member Turkey has long been accused by experts, Kurds, and even Joe Biden of enabling ISIS by turning a blind eye to the vast smuggling networks of weapons and fighters during the ongoing Syrian war.

The move by the ruling AKP party was apparently part of ongoing attempts to trigger the downfall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Ankara officially ended its loose border policy last year, but not before its southern frontier became a transit point for cheap oil, weapons, foreign fighters, and pillaged antiquities.

REUTERS

In November, a former ISIS member told Newsweek that the group was essentially given free reign by Turkey’s army.

“ISIS commanders told us to fear nothing at all because there was full cooperation with the Turks,” the fighter said. “ISIS saw the Turkish army as its ally especially when it came to attacking the Kurds in Syria.”

But as the alleged arrangements progressed, Turkey allowed the group to establish a major presence within the country — and created a huge problem for itself.

“The longer this has persisted, the more difficult it has become for the Turks to crack down [on ISIS] because there is the risk of a counter strike, of blowback,” Jonathan Schanzer, a former counterterrorism analyst for the US Treasury Department, explained to Business Insider in November.

“You have a lot of people now that are invested in the business of extremism in Turkey,” Schanzer added. “If you start to challenge that, it raises significant questions of whether” the militants, their benefactors, and other war profiteers would tolerate the crackdown.

REUTERS/Osman OrsalAn armed man, believed to be an Islamic state militant, is seen near the northern Syrian town of Tal Abyad as he is pictured from the Turkish border town of Akcakale, southeastern Sanliurfa province January 29, 2015.

A Western diplomat, speaking to the Wall Street Journal in February, expressed a similar sentiment: “Turkey is trapped now — it created a monster and doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

Ankara had begun to address the problem in earnest — arresting 500 suspected extremists over the past six months as they crossed the border and raiding the homes of others — when an ISIS-affiliated suicide bomber killed 32 activists in Turkey’s southeast on July 20.

Turks subsequently took to the streets to protest the government policies they felt had enabled the attack.

REUTERS/Sertac KayarDemonstrators burn tyres to block a street during protests against Monday’s bomb attack in Suruc, in the Kurdish dominated southeastern city of Diyarbakir, Turkey, July 21, 2015.

Amidst protestors’ chants of “Murderous ISIL, collaborator AKP,” Erdogan finally agreed last Thursday to enter the US-led campaign against ISIS, sending fighter jets into Syria and granting the US strategic use of a key airbase in the southeast to launch airstrikes.

At the same time, Turkey began bombing Kurdish PKK shelters and storage facilities in northern Iraq, the AP reported, indicating that the AKP still sees Kurdish advances as a major — if not the biggest — threat, despite the Kurds’ battlefield successes against ISIS in northern Syria.

“This isn’t an overhaul of their thinking,” a Western official in Ankara told the Guardian. “It’s more a reaction to what they have been confronted with by the Americans and others. There is at least a recognition now that ISIS isn’t leverage against Assad. They have to be dealt with.”

We’ve been very patient. For the last 12 hours we’ve been constantly refreshing Google News for just one — one — western article about Putin’s bombshell comments at the G20 summit in Antalya. You would think that the Russian President stating publicly that ISIS is receiving money from 40 different countries, including G20 members, would be “newsworthy”. Right? 

But the western media has defied even our worst expectations: Not a single mainstream western outlet reported on Putin’s comments. Typically, at least the Daily Beast has the common courtesy to distort or misrepresent the most recent Putin press conference. But in this instance, there is literally no written western record of Putin saying anything about who finances ISIS during the G20 summit in Turkey. This is insane.

Only cricket chirps from the west

We tried various keywords. Alas, to no avail:

Nothing.

(By the way, that Reuters article has no mention of what Putin said. But at least it mentions Putin: “Obama met Russian President Vladimir Putin in an informal meeting lasting around 30 minutes at the summit on Sunday, a discussion which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said had been constructive but not groundbreaking. Obama made no mention of their meeting at his news conference.”)

This is beyond shameful. If the west is so concerned about fighting ISIS, surely it would be eager to discuss who is financing these scumbags?

Welcome to 2015.

Over the past 15 years the US has been engaged in a series of wars, which has led many writers to refer to the ‘rise of militarism’ – the growth of an empire, built primarily by and for the projection of military power – and only secondarily to advance economic imperialism.

The rise of a military-based empire, however, does not preclude the emergence of competing, conflicting and convergent power configurations within the imperial state.  These factions of the Washington elite define the objectives and targets of imperial warfare, often on their own terms.

Having stated the obvious general fact of the power of militarism within the imperial state, it is necessary to recognize that the key policy-makers, who direct the wars and military policy, will vary according to the country targeted, type of warfare engaged in and their conception of the war.  In other words, while US policy is imperialist and highly militaristic, the key policymakers, their approach and the outcomes of their policies will differ.  There is no fixed strategy devised by a cohesive Washington policy elite guided by a unified strategic vision of the US Empire.

In order to understand the current, seemingly endless wars, we have to examine the shifting coalitions of elites, who make decisions in Washington but not always primarily for Washington.  Some factions of the policy elite have clear conceptions of the American empire, but others improvise and rely on superior ‘political’ or ‘lobbying’ power to successfully push their agenda in the face of repeated failures and suffer no consequences or costs.

We will start by listing US imperial wars during the last decade and a half.  We will then identify the main policy-making faction which has been the driving force in each war.  We will discuss their successes and failures as imperial policy makers and conclude with an evaluation of “the state of the empire” and its future.

Imperial Wars:  From 2001 – 2015

The current war cycle started in late 2001 with the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.  This was followed by the invasion and occupation of Iraq in March 2003, the US arms support for Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, the proxy invasion of Somalia in 2006/7; the massive re-escalation of war in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 – 2009; the   bombing, invasion ‘regime change’ in Libya in 2011; the ongoing proxy-mercenary war against Syria (since 2012), and the ongoing 2015 Saudi-US invasion and destruction of Yemen.  In Europe, the US was behind the 2014 proxy putsch and violent ‘regime change’ in Ukraine which has led to an ongoing war against ethnic Russian speakers in south-east Ukraine, especially the populous industrial heartland of the Donbas region.

Over the past 15 years, there have been overt and covert military interventions, accompanied by an intense, provocative military build-up along Russia’s borders in the Baltic States, Eastern Europe (especially Poland), the Balkans (Bulgaria and Romania) and the mammoth US base in Kosovo; in Central Europe with nuclear missiles in Germany and, of course, the annexation of Ukraine and Georgia as US-NATO clients.

Parallel to the military provocations encircling Russia, Washington has launched a major military, political, economic and diplomatic offensive aimed at isolating China and affirming US supremacy in the Pacific.

In South American, US military intervention found expression via Washington-orchestrated business-military coup attempts in Venezuela in 2002 and Bolivia in 2008, and a successful ‘regime change’ in Honduras in 2009, overthrowing its elected president and installing a US puppet.

In summary, the US has been engaged in two, three or more wars since 2001, defining an almost exclusively militarist empire, run by an imperial state directed by civilian and military officials seeking unchallenged global dominance through violence.

Washington: Military Workshop of the World

War and violent regime change are the exclusive means through which the US now advances its foreign policy.  However, the various Washington war-makers among the power elite do not form a unified bloc with common priorities.  Washington provides the weapons, soldiers and financing for whichever power configuration or faction among the elite is in a position, by design or default, to seize the initiative and push their own war agenda.

The invasion of Afghanistan was significant in so far as it was seen by all sectors of the militarist elite, as the first in a series of wars.  Afghanistan was to set the stage for the launching of higher priority wars elsewhere.

Afghanistan was followed by the infamous ‘Axis of Evil’ speech, dictated by Tel Aviv, penned by presidential speech-writer, David Fromm and mouthed by the brainless President Bush, II.  The ‘Global War on Terror’ was the thinly veiled slogan for serial wars around the world.   Washington measured the loyalty of its vassals among the nations of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America by their support for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.  The Afghan invasion provided the template for future wars.  It led to an unprecedented increase in the military budget and ushered in  ‘Caesar’-like dictatorial presidential powers to order and execute wars, silencing domestic critics and sending scored of thousands of US and NATO troops to the ‘Hindu Kush’.

In itself, Afghanistan was never any threat and certainly no economic prize for plunder and profit.  The Taliban had not attacked the US.  Osama Bin Laden could have been turned over to a judicial tribunal – as the governing Taliban had insisted.

The US military (with its ‘Coalition of the Willing’ or COW) successfully invaded and occupied Afghanistan and set up a vassal regime in Kabul.  It built scores of military bases and attempted to form an obedient colonial army.  In the meantime, the Washington militarist elite had moved on to bigger and, for the Israel-centric Zionist elite, higher priority wars, namely Iraq.

The decision to invade Afghanistan was not opposed by any of Washington’s militarist elite factions.  They all shared the idea of using a successful military blitz or ‘cake-walk’ against the abysmally impoverished Afghanistan as a way to rabble rouse the American masses into accepting a long period of intense and costly global warfare throughout the world.

Washington’s militarist elites fabricated the link between the attacks on 9/11/2001 and Afghanistan’s governing Taliban and the presence of the Saudi warlord Osama Bin Laden.  Despite the ‘fact’ that most of the ‘hijackers’ were from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and none were Afghans, invading and destroying Afghanistan was to be the initial test to gauge the highly manipulated and frightened American public’s willingness to shoulder the burden of a huge new cycle of imperial wars.  This has been the only aspect of the invasion of Afghanistan that could be viewed as a policy success – it made the costs of endless wars ‘acceptable’ to a relentlessly propagandized public.

Flush with their military victories in the Hindu Kush, the Washington militarists turned to Iraq and fabricated a series of increasingly preposterous pretexts for war:  Linking the 9/11 ‘jihadi’ hijackers with the secular regime of Saddam Hussein, whose intolerance for violent Islamists (especially the Saudi variety) was well documented, and concocting a whole fabric of lies about Iraqi ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which provided the  propaganda basis for invading an already disarmed, blockaded and starved Iraq in March 2003.

Leading the Washington militarists in designing the war to destroy Iraq were the Zionists, including Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, and a few Israel-centric Gentile militarists, such as Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. The Zionists had a powerful entourage in key positions in the State Department, Treasury and the Pentagon.

There were ‘outsiders’ – non-Zionists and militarists within these institutions, especially the Pentagon, who voiced reservations – but they were brushed aside, not consulted and ‘encouraged’ to retire.

None of the ‘old hands’ in the State Department or Pentagon bought into the hysteria about Sadaam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, but to voice reservations was to risk one’s career.  The manufacture and dissemination of the pretext for invading Iraq was orchestrated by a small team of operatives linking Tel Aviv and  Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz’s “Office of Special Plans”, a tight group of Zionists and some Israelis headed by Abram Shulsky (Sept. 2002 – June 2003).

The US war on Iraq was an important part of Israel’s agenda to ‘re-make the Middle East’ to establish its unchallenged regional hegemony and execute a ‘final solution’ for its own vexing ‘Arab (native Palestinian) problem’:  It was made operational by the powerful Zionist faction within the Executive (White House), which had assumed almost dictatorial powers after the attack on 9/11/2001.  Zionists planned the war , designed the ‘occupation policy’ and ‘succeeded wildly’ with the eventual dismemberment of a once modern secular nationalist Arab state.

In order to smash the Iraqi state – the US occupation policy was to eliminate (through mass firings, jailing and assassination) all high level, experienced Iraqi civil, military and scientific personnel – down to high school principals.  They dismantled any vital infrastructure (which had not been already destroyed by the decades of US sanctions and bombing under President Clinton) and reduced an agriculturally advanced Iraq to a barren wasteland which would take centuries to recover and could never challenge Israel’s colonization of Palestine, let alone its military supremacy in the Middle East.  Naturally, the large Palestinian Diaspora refugee population in Iraq was targeted for ‘special treatment’.

But Zionist policymakers had a much larger agenda than erasing Iraq as a viable country:  They had a longer list of targets: Syria, Iran, Lebanon and Libya, whose destructions were to be carried out with US and NATO blood and treasure (and not a single Israeli soldier).

Despite the fact that Iraq did not even possess a functioning air force or navy in March 2003 and Afghanistan in late 2001 was rather primitive, the invasions of both countries turned out to be very costly to the US.  The US completely failed to benefit from its ‘victory and occupation’, despite Paul Wolfowitz’ boasts that the pillage of Iraq’s oil fields would pay for the entire project in a ‘few months’.  This was because the real Zionist plan was  to destroy these nations – beyond any possibility for a quick or cheap imperialist economic gain.  Scorching the earth and salting the fields is not a very profitable policy for empire builders.

Israel has been the biggest winner with no cost for the ‘Jewish State’.  The American Zionist policy elite literally handed them the services of the largest and richest armed forces in history: the US.  ‘Israel-Firsters’ played a decisive role among Washington policy-makers and Tel Aviv celebrated in the streets!  They came, they dominated policy and they accomplished their mission:  Iraq (and millions of its people)was destroyed.

The US gained an unreliable, broken colony, with a devastated economy and systematically destroyed infrastructure and without the functioning civil service needed for a modern state. To pay for the mess, the American people faced a spiraling budget deficit, tens of thousands of American war casualties and massive cuts in their own social programs.  Crowning the Washington war-makers’ victory was the disarticulation of American civil and constitutional rights and liberties and the construction of a enormous domestic police state.

After the Iraq disaster, the same influential Zionist faction in Washington lost no time in demanding a new war against Israel’s bigger enemy – namely Iran.  In the ensuing years, they failed to push the US to attack Teheran but they succeeded in imposing crippling sanctions on Iran.  The Zionist faction secured massive US military support for Israel’s abortive invasion of Lebanon and its devastating series of blitzkriegs against the impoverished and trapped people of Gaza.

The Zionist faction successfully shaped US military interventions to meet Israel’s regional ambitions against three Arab countries: Yemen, Syria and Libya..  The Zionists were not able to manipulate the US into attacking Iran because the traditional militarist faction in Washington balked:  With instability in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US was not well positioned to face a major conflagration  throughout the Middle East, South Asia and beyond – which a ground and air war with Iran would involve.  However, the Zionist factions did secure brutal economic sanctions and the appointment of key Israel-Centric officials within the US Treasury.  Secretary Stuart Levey, at the start of the Obama regime, and David Cohen afterwards, were positioned to enforce the sanctions.

Even before the ascendency of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Tel Aviv’s military objectives after Iraq, including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Yemen had to be spaced over time, because the non-Zionist factions among Washington’s elite had been unable to  integrate occupied Afghanistan and Iraq into the empire.

Resistance, armed conflict and military advances in both Afghanistan and Iraq never ceased and are continuing into their 2^nd decade.  As soon as the US would withdraw from a region, declaring it ‘pacified’, the armed resistance would move back in and the local sepoys would defect to the rebels or take off for London or Washington with millions in pillaged loot.

‘Unfinished wars’, mounting casualties and spiraling costs, with no end in sight, undermined the agreement between the militarist  and the Zionist factions in the Executive branch.  However, the massively powerful Zionist presence in the US Congress provided a platform to bray for new and even bigger wars.

Israel’s vicious invasion of Lebanon in 2006 was defeated despite receiving massive US arms supplies, a US funded ‘Iron Dome’ missile defense system and intelligence assistance. Tel Aviv  could not defeat the highly disciplined and motivated Hezbollah fighters in South Lebanon  despite resorting to carpet bombing of civilian neighborhoods with millions of banned cluster munitions and picking off ambulances and churches sheltering refugees.  Israelis have been much more triumphal murdering lightly armed Palestinian resistance fighters and stone-throwing children.

Libya:  A Multi-faction War for the Militarists (without Big Oil)

The war against Libya was a result of multiple factions among the Washington militarist elite, including the Zionists, coming together with French, English and German militarists to smash the most modern, secular, independent state in Africa under President Muammar Gaddafi.

The aerial campaign against the Gaddafi regime had virtually no organized support within Libya with which to reconstruct a viable neo-colonial state ripe for pillage.  This was another ‘planned dismemberment’ of a complex, modern republic which had been independent of the US Empire.

The war succeeded wildly in shredding Libya’s economy, state and society.  It unleashed scores of armed terrorist groups,( who appropriated the modern weapons of Gaddafi’s army and police) and uprooted two million black contract workers and Libyan citizens of South Saharan origin forcing them to flee the rampaging racist militias to the refugee camps of Europe.  Untold thousands died in rickety boats in the Mediterranean Sea.

The entire war was carried out to the publicly giddy delight of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her ‘humanitarian interventionist’ lieutenants (Susan Rice and Samantha Power), who were utterly ignorant as to who and what the Libyan “opposition” represented.  Eventually, even  Hillary’s own Ambassador to Libya would be slaughtered by . . . the same victorious US-backed ‘rebels’ (sic) in the newly liberated Bengasi!

The Zionist faction destroyed Gaddafi (whose capture, grotesque torture and murder was filmed and widely disseminated), eliminating another real adversary of Israel and supporter of Palestinian rights. The US militarist faction, which led the war, got nothing positive – not even a secure naval, air or training base – only a dead Ambassador, millions of desperate refugees flooding Europe and thousands of trained and armed jihadists for the next target: Syria.

For a while Libya became the main supply-line for Islamist mercenaries and arms to invade Syria and fight the secular nationalist government in Damascus.

Once again the least influential faction in Washington turned out to be the oil and gas industry, which  lost lucrative contracts it had already signed with the Gaddafi regime.  Thousands of highly trained foreign oil workers were withdrawn.  After Iraq, it should have been obvious that these wars were not ‘for oil’!

Ukraine:  Coups, Wars and Russia’s ‘Underbelly’

With the US-orchestrated coup and intervention in Ukraine, the militarist factions once again seized the initiative, establishing a puppet regime in Kiev and targeting Russia’s strategic ‘soft underbelly’.  The plan had been to take over Russia’s strategic military bases in Crimea and cut Russia from the vital military-industrial complexes in the Donbas region with its vast iron and coal reserves.

The mechanics of the power grab were relatively well planned, the political clients were put in power, but the US militarists had made no contingencies for propping up the Ukrainian economy, cut loose from its main trading  partner and oil and gas supplier, Russia.

The coup led to a ‘proxy war’ in the ethnic-Russian majority regions in the south east (the Donbas) with four ‘unanticipated consequences’. 1) a country divided east and west along ethno-linguistic lines, (2) a bankrupt economy made even worse by the imposition of an IMF  austerity program, (3) a corrupt crony capitalist elite, which was ‘pro-West by bank account’, (4) and, after two years, mass disaffection among voters toward the US puppet regime.

The militarists in Washington and Brussels succeeded in engineering the coup in Ukraine but lacked the domestic allies, plans and preparations to run the country and successfully annex it to the EU and NATO as a viable country.

Apparently the militarist factions in the State Department and Pentagon are much more proficient in stage managing coups and invasions than in establishing a stable regime as part of a New World Order.  They succeed in the former and fail repeatedly in the latter.

The Pivot to Asia and the Pirouette to Syria

During most of the previous decade, traditional global strategists in Washington increasingly objected to the Zionist faction’s domination and direction of US war policies focused on the Middle East for the benefit of Israel, instead of meeting the growing challenge of the new world economic superpower in Asia, China.

US economic supremacy in Asia had been deeply eroded as China’s economy grew at double digits.  Beijing was displacing the US as the major trade partner in the Latin American and African markets.  Meanwhile, the top 500 US MNC’s were heavily invested in China.  Three years into President Obama’s first term the ‘China militarist faction’ announced a shift from the Middle East and the Israel-centric agenda to a ‘pivot to Asia’, the source of 40% of the world’s industrial output.

But it was not profits and markets that motivated Washington’s Asia faction among the militarist elites – it was military power .Even  trade agreements, like the TransPacific Partnership (TPP), were viewed as tools to encircle and weaken China militarily and undermine its regional influence.

Led by the hysterical Pentagon boss Ashton Carter, Washington prepared a series of major military confrontations with Beijing off the coast of China.

The US signed expanded military base agreements with the Philippines, Japan and Australia; it participated in military exercises with Vietnam, South Korea and Malaysia; it dispatched battleships and aircraft carriers into Chinese territorial waters.

The US confrontational trade policy was formulated by the Zionist trio: Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzer, Trade Negotiator Michael Froman (who works for both the Asia militarist and Zionist factions) and Treasury Secretary Jake Lew.  The result was the  Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), involving 12 Pacific countries while deliberating excluding China.   Washington’s Asian militarist faction planned to militarize the entire Pacific Basin, in order to dominate the maritime trade routes and, at a moment’s notice, choke off all of China’s overseas markets and suppliers – shades of the series of US provocations against Japan leading up to the US entering WW2.

The ‘Asia-militarist faction’ successfully demanded a bigger military budget to accommodate its vastly more aggressive  posture toward China.

Predictably, China has insisted on defending its maritime routes and has increased its naval and air base building and sea and air patrols.  Also, predictably, China has countered the US-dominated TPP by setting-up a one hundred billion dollar Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), while contributing to the multi-billion dollar BRICS Bank.  Meanwhile, China even signed a separate $30 billion dollar trade agreement with Washington’s strategic ‘partner’, Britain.  In fact, Britain followed the rest of the EU and joined the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank – despite objections from Washington’s “Asia faction”.

While the US depends heavily on its military pacts with South Korea and Japan, the latter nations have been meeting with China – their most significant trading partner – to work on expanding and deepening economic ties.

Up until 2014, the “business-with-China faction” of the Washington elite played a key role in the making of US-Asia policy.  However, they have been eclipsed by the Asia militarist-faction, which is taking US policy in a totally different direction:  Pushing China out as Asia’s economic superpower and escalating military confrontation with Beijing now heads Washington’s agenda.

Ashton Carter, the US Defense Secretary, has China, the second most important economy in the world in the Pentagon’s ‘cross-hairs’.   When the TPP failed to curtail China’s expansion, the militarist faction shifted Washington toward a high risk military course, which could destabilize the region and risk a nuclear confrontation.

The Pirouette:  China and Syria

Meanwhile in the Levant, Washington’s Zionist faction has been busy running a proxy war in Syria.  The pivot to Asia has had to compete with the pirouette to Syria and Yemen.

The US joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Gulf Emirates and the EU in sponsoring a replay of the Libyan ‘regime change’– sponsoring proxy terrorists from around the globe into invading and devastating Syria.  Damascus has been attacked from all sides for the ‘crime’ of being secular and multi-ethnic; for being pro-Palestinian; for being allied with Iran and Lebanon ; for having an independent foreign policy; and for maintaining a  limited representative (but not necessarily democratic)  government. For these crimes, the West, Israel and the Saudis would have Syria fractured into ethnically cleansed ‘tribal state’ – something they had accomplished in Iraq and Libya.

The US militarist faction (personified by Secretary of Defense Carter and Senators McCain and Graham) have funded, trained and equipped the terrorists, whom they call ‘moderates’ and had clearly expected their progeny to follow Washington’s directions.  The emergence of Isis showed just how close these ‘moderates’ stuck to Washington’s script.

Initially, the traditional militarist wing of Washington’s elite resisted the Zionist faction’s demand for direct US military intervention (American ‘boots on the ground’).  That is changing with recent (very convenient) events in Paris.

Warfare: From Piecemeal Interventions to  Nuclear Confrontation

The Washington militarists have again committed more US soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan; American fighter planes and Special Forces are in Syria and Yemen.  Meanwhile,  US naval armadas aggressively patrol the coasts of China and Iran.  The militarist – Zionist ‘compromise’ over Syria was comprised of an initial contingent of 50 US Special Forces to join in ‘limited’ combat roles with (“loyal” sic) Islamist mercenaries – the so-called ‘moderates’.  There are commitments for greater and heavier weaponry to come, including ground to air missiles capable of shooting down Russian and Syrian military  jets.

Elite Factional Politics:  An Overview

How does the record of these competing factions, formulating US imperial war policies in the Middle East over the past 15 years stack up?   Clearly there has been no coherent imperial economic strategy.

The policy toward Afghanistan is remarkable for its failure to end the longest war in US history – over 14 years of occupation!  The recent attempts by US-led client NATO forces to withdraw have been immediately followed by military advances by the nationalist-Islamist resistance militia – the Taliban, which controls much of the countryside.  The  possibility of a collapse of the current puppet in Kabul has forced the militarists in Washington to retain US bases – surrounded by completely hostile rural populations.

The Afghan war’s initial appearance of success triggered new wars – inter alia Iraq.  But taking the long view, the Afghan war, has been a miserable failure in terms of the stated strategic goal of establishing a stable client government.  The Afghan economy collapsed:  opium production (which had been significantly suppressed by the Taliban’s poppy eradication campaign in 2000-2001) is the now predominant crop – with cheap heroin flooding Europe and beyond.  Under the weight of massive and all pervasive corruption by ‘loyal’ client officials – the Afghan treasury is empty.  The puppet rulers are totally disconnected from the most important regional, ethnic, religious and family clans and associations.

Washington could not ‘find’ any viable economic classes in Afghanistan with which to anchor a development strategy.  They did not come to terms with the deep ethno-religious consciousness rooted in rural communities and fought the most popular political force among the majority Pashtu, the Taliban, which had no role in the attack on ‘9/11’.

They artificially slapped together a massive army of surly illiterates under Western imperial command and watched it fall apart at the seams, defect to the Taliban or turn their own guns on the foreign occupation troops. These “mistakes”, which accounted for the failure of the militarist faction in the Afghanistan war were due, in no small part, to the pressure and influence of the Zionist faction who wanted to quickly move on to their highest priority, a US war against Israel’s first priority enemy – Iraq – without consolidating the US control in Afghanistan.  For the Zionists, Afghanistan (envisioned as a ‘cake-walk’ or quick victory) was just a tool to set the stage for a much larger sequence of US wars against Israel’s regional Arab and Persian adversaries.

Before the militarists could establish any viable order and an enduring governmental structure in Afghanistan, attention shifted to a Zionist-centered war against Iraq.

The build-up for the US war against Iraq has to be understood as a project wholly engineered by and for the state of  Israel, mostly through its agents within the US government and Washington policy elite.  The goal was to establish Israel as the unchallenged political-military power in the region using American troops and money and preparing the ground for Tel Aviv’s “final solution” for the Palestinian ‘problem’; total expulsion…

The US military and occupation campaign included the wholesale and systematic destruction of Iraq:  Its law and order, culture, economy and society – so there would be no possibility of recovery.  Such a vicious campaign did not resonate with any productive sector of the US economy (or for that matter with any Israeli economic interest).

Washington’s Zionist faction set about in a parody of ‘Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge’ to identify and destroy any competent, experienced Iraqi professional, civil servant, scientist, intellectual, or military official capable of re-organizing and re-building the county and war-battered society.   They were assassinated, arrested, tortured or driven into exile.  The occupation deliberately encouraged religious parties and traditional tribes to engage in inter-communal massacres and ethnic cleansing.  In other words, the Zionist faction did not pursue the traditionally understood policy of empire building which would incorporate the second tier functionaries of a conquered state to form a competent client regime and use Iraq’s great oil and gas wealth to build its economy.  Instead they chose to impose a scorched earth policy; setting loose organized sectarian armies, imposing the rule of grotesquely corrupt ex-pats and placing the most venal, sectarian clients in positions of power.  The effect has been to transform the most advanced, secular Arab country into an ‘Afghanistan’ and in less than 15 years destroying centuries of culture and community.

The goal of the ‘Zionist strategy’ was to destroy Iraq as Israel’s regional rival.  The cost of over a million Iraqi dead and many million refugees did not prick any conscience in Washington or Tel Aviv.

After all, Washington’s traditional ‘militarist faction’ picked up the bill (costing hundreds of billions) which they passed on to the American taxpayers (well over one trillion dollars) and used the deaths and suffering of tens of thousands of American troops to provide a pretext for spreading more chaos.    The result of their mayhem includes the specter of ‘Isis’, which they may consider to be a success – since hysteria over ‘Isis’ pushes the West ‘closer to Israel’.

The sheer scale of death and destruction inflicted on the Iraqi population by the Zionist faction led to thousands of highly competent Ba’athist officers, who had survived ‘Shock and Awe’ and the sectarian massacres, to join armed Islamist Sunnis and eventually form the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).  This group of experienced Iraqi military officers formed the strategic technical core of Isis which launched a devastating offensive in Iraq in 2014 – taking major cities in the north and completely routing the US-trained puppet armies of the ‘government’ in Baghdad.  From there they moved into Syria and beyond.  It is fundamental to understanding the roots of ISIS:  The Zionist faction among US militarist policymakers imposed a deliberate ‘scorched earth’ occupation policy, which united highly trained nationalist Ba’athist military officers with young Sunni fighters ,both locals and increasingly foreign jihadist mercenaries.  These deracinated members of the traditional Iraqi nationalist military elite had lost their families to the sectarian massacres; they were persecuted, tortured, driven underground and highly motivated.  They literally had nothing left to lose!

This core of the Isis leadership stands in stark contrast to the colonial, corrupt and demoralized army slapped together by the US military with more cash than morale.  ISIS quickly swept through half of Iraq and came within 40 miles of Baghdad.

The US militarist faction faced military defeat after eight years of war.  They mobilized, financed and armed their client Kurdish mercenaries in northern Iraq and recruited the Shia Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to appeal to the Shia militia.

ISIS exploited the Western-backed Islamist uprising in Syria – and extended their sweep well across the border.  Syria had accepted a million Iraqi refugees from the US invasion, including many of Iraq’s surviving experienced nationalist administrative elite.  The US militarists are in a dilemma – another full-scale war would not be politically feasible, and its military outcome uncertain…Moreover the US was aligned with dubious allies  – especially the Saudis – who had their own regional ambitions

Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Kurds were each eager to expand their power territorially and politically.

In the midst of this, the traditional Washington militarists are left with no overall viable imperialist strategy.  Instead they improvise with faux ‘rebels’, who claim to be moderates and democrats, while taking US guns and dollars and ultimately joining the most powerful Islamist groups – like Isis.

Throwing a wrench into the machinery of Israeli-Saudi hegemonic ambitions, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have sided with the secular Syrian government.  Russia finally moved to bomb Isis strongholds – after identifying a significant Isis contingent of militant Chechens whose ultimate aims are to bring war and terror back to Russia.

The US-EU war against Libya unleashed all the retrograde mercenary forces from three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe) and Washington finds itself with no means to control them.  Washington could not even protect its own consulate in their  “ liberated” regional capital of Benghazi – the US ambassador and two intelligence aides were killed by Washington’s own ‘rebels’.  The competing and cooperating factions of the Washington militarist elite placed Libya on a steaming platter: Serving up invasion, regicide and hundreds of thousands of refugees, which they did not bother to even ‘season’ with any plan or strategy – just  unadulterated scorched earth against another opponent of Zionism.  And a potentially lucrative strategic neo-colony in North Africa has been lost with no accountability for the Washington architects of such barbarism.

Latin America:  The Last Outpost of the Multi-Nationals

As we have seen, the major theaters of imperial policy (the Middle East and Asia) have been dominated by militarists, not professional diplomats-linked to the MNCs.  Latin America stands as something of an exception.  In Latin America, US policymakers have been guided by big business interests.  Their main focus has been on pushing the neo-liberal agenda.  Eventually this has meant promoting the US-centered ‘free trade’ agreements, joint military exercises, shared military bases, and political backing for the US global military agenda.

The ‘militarist faction’ in Washington worked with the traditional business faction in support of  the unsuccessful military coups in Venezuela (2002 and 2014), the attempted coup in Bolivia 2008, and a successful regime change in Honduras (2010).

To harass the independent Argentine government which was developing closer diplomatic and trade ties with Iran, a sector of the US Zionist financial elite (the ‘vulture fund’ magnate Paul Singer) joined forces with the Zionist militarist faction to raise hysterical accusations against President Cristina Kirchner over the ‘mysterious’ suicide of a Israel-linked Argentine prosecutor.  The prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, had devoted his career to ‘cooking up a case’ against Iran with the aid of the Mossad and CIA for the unsolved, bombing the Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994.  Various investigations had exonerated Iran and the “Nisman Affaire” was an intense effort to keep Argentina from trading with Iran.

The Washington business faction operated in a mildly hostile Latin America for most of the past decade. However, it was able to recover influence, via a series of bilateral free trade agreements and took advantage of the end of the commodity cycle.  The latter weakened the center-left regimes and moved them closer to Washington.

The ‘excesses’ committed by the US backed military dictatorships during the nineteen sixties through eighties, and the crisis of the neo-liberal nineties, set the stage for the rise of a relatively moderate business-diplomatic faction to come to the fore in Washington.  It is also the case that the various militarist and Zionist factions in Washington were focused elsewhere (Europe, Middle East and Asia).  In any case the US political elite operates in Latin America mostly via political and business proxies, for the time being.

Conclusion

From our brief survey, it is clear that wars play a key role in US foreign policy in most regions of the world.  However, war policies in different regions respond to different factions in the governing elite.

The traditional militarist faction predominates creating confrontations in Ukraine, Asia and along the Russian border.  Within that framework the US Army, Air Force and Special Forces play a leading, and fairly conventional, role.  In the Far East, the Navy and Air Force predominate.

In the Middle East and South Asia, the military (Army and Air Force) factions share power with the Zionist faction .  Fundamentally the Zionist dictate policy on Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine and the militarists follow.

Both factions overlapped in creating the debacle in Libya.

The factions form shifting coalitions, supporting wars of interest to their respective power centers.  The militarists and Zionists worked together in launching the Afghan war; but once launched, the Zionists abandoned Kabul and concentrated on preparing for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which was of far greater interest to Israel.

It should be noted that at no point did the oil and business elite play any significant role in war policy.  The Zionist faction pushed hard to secure direct US ground intervention in  Libya and Syria, but was not able  to force the US  to send large contingents of ground troops due to opposition from the Russians as well as a growing sector of the US electorate.  Likewise, the Zionists played a leading role in successfully imposing sanctions against Iran and a major role in prosecuting banks around the world accused of violating the sanctions.  However, they were not able to block the military faction from securing a diplomatic agreement with Iran over its uranium enrichment program – without going to war.

Clearly, the business faction plays a major role in promoting US trade agreements and tries to lift or avoid sanctions against important real and potential trade partners like China, Iran and Cuba.

The Zionists faction among the Washington elite policymakers take positions which consistently push for wars and aggressive policies against any regime targeted by Israel.  The differences between the traditional militarist and Zionist factions are blurred by most writers who scrupulously avoid identifying Zionist decision-makers, but there is no question of who benefits and who loses.

The kind of war which the Zionists promote and implement – the utter destruction of enemy countries – undermines any plans by the traditional militarist faction and the military to consolidate power in an occupied country and incorporate it into a stable empire.

It is a serious error to lump these factions together: the business, Zionist and various militarist factions of the Washington policy making elite are not one homogeneous group.  They may overlap at times, but they also differ as to interests, liabilities , ideology and loyalties.  They also differ in their institutional allegiances.

The overarching militarist ideology, which permeates US imperial foreign policy obscures a deep and recurrent weakness – US policymakers master the mechanics of war but have no strategy for ruling after intervening.  This has been glaringly evident in all recent wars:  Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine etc.  Improvisation has repeatedly led to monumental failures: from financing phantom armies to bleeding billions to prop-up incompetent, kleptocratic puppet regimes.  Despite the hundreds of billions of public money wasted in these serial disasters, no policymaker has been held to account.

Long wars and short memories are the norm for Washington’s militarist rulers who do not lose sleep over their blunders.  The Zionists, for their part, do not even need a strategy for rule.  They push the US into wars for Israel, and once having destroyed “the enemy country” they leave a vacuum to be filled by chaos.  The American public provides the gold and blood for these misadventures and reaps nothing but domestic deterioration and greater international strife.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is using the terrorist attacks in Paris to ramp up tensions in pursuit of Israel’s geostrategic interests.

“Israel stands shoulder to shoulder with France in the battle against radical Islam,” he declared in the aftermath of Friday’s killings. “All terrorism must be condemned and fought equally with unwavering determination. It’s only with this moral clarity that the forces of civilization will defeat the savagery of terrorism.”

On Tuesday, Israel outlawed the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, which it accused of fomenting violence by stating that Israel intends to take control of the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount.

Netanyahu’s office issued a statement declaring:

“For years, the northern branch of the Islamic Movement has led a mendacious campaign of incitement under the heading ‘Al-Aqsa is in danger’ that falsely accuses Israel of intending to harm the Al-Aqsa mosque and violate the status quo.” The statement went on to claim that this agitation was responsible for “a significant portion of recent terrorist attacks.”

The government said the banned movement was committed to Israel’s destruction for the purpose of establishing an Islamic “caliphate.” Police closed 17 organizations affiliated with the movement, raided more than a dozen of its offices, and froze the group’s bank accounts.

Israel also approved the construction of hundreds of new homes in the Ramat Shlomo Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem.

Netanyahu has a conveniently short memory when it comes to terrorism. He leads the Likud party, whose political antecedents are the Herut party and the ultra-right Revisionist movement, which engaged in terrorist activities carried out by the Irgun and the Stern gang and their various splinter groups. Terror was an important tactic in the drive to establish the state of Israel.

Some of the terrorist acts were aimed at the British, which ruled Palestine at the time, including the 1944 assassination of Lord Moyne, the British military commander in Egypt, and the blowing up of the King David Hotel, the British military headquarters in Jerusalem, in July 1946, killing 91 people and injuring 46.

Many more were aimed at the Palestinians for the purpose of driving them from their homes and farms. The most notorious atrocity was the massacre at Deir Yassin, where Zionist elements killed all 254 inhabitants. Terror attacks continued even after the establishment of the state of Israel, including the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, a United Nations envoy seeking to arrange a peace agreement between Israel and the Arabs.

Netanyahu is once again seeking to equate the Palestinians with terrorism. This, after all, is the man who said, following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, that the attack was “very good” because it would “generate immediate sympathy” for Israel and its war against the Palestinians.

Speaking at a special press conference on Saturday, he said, “We are standing on the front lines [of the battle] against terrorism that is increasingly being transformed from Palestinian nationalistic terrorism to Islamic terrorism.”

In reality, his own intelligence service, Shin Bet, concluded in a recent report that the Palestinian youths carrying out stabbing attacks on Jewish Israelis are not acting on anyone’s orders, but are motivated by “feelings of national, economic and personal deprivation.”

Netanyahu sought to link the Paris bombings with the killing of two Israeli settlers in South Hebron on Friday, saying, “You can’t say these are the good terrorists and these are the bad terrorists. All terrorists are bad.”

“I expect [international] support for Israel when it fights terrorism,” he added, “Just as Israel supports France and other countries.”

According to Netanyahu, the Paris bombings are justification for Israel’s crackdown on opposition to a nearly 50-year occupation of Palestinian territory. Since the beginning of October, Israel’s security forces have carried out illegal and draconian measures, including a shoot-to-kill policy and the targeting of Palestinians that amount to extra-judicial executions. These have killed at least 85 Palestinians and injured thousands more. On Saturday, Israeli forces destroyed the family homes of four Palestinians accused of shooting Jewish Israelis.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has accused Israeli troops of consistently attacking its teams in the field, shooting and firing tear gas canisters at them or beating and pepper spraying them. It said that since October 1, some “125 PRCS emergency medical technicians have been wounded and 67 ambulances damaged as a result of these systematic practices, which go against international human law provisions.” Israel prevented Red Crescent teams from reaching Palestinians who were sick or wounded on 66 occasions over the same period.

The Israeli government is preparing to deploy some 70 reserve battalions in the West Bank next year at a cost of $77 million, in addition to the four reserve battalions already called up, in anticipation that the ongoing unrest will last for “many months.”

Netanyahu said that Israeli security and intelligence forces were working with France and other European countries and had passed on information derived from their surveillance of militant groups in Syria and Iraq to their French counterparts. Israel’s Army Radio said that its electronic surveillance of Syria and Iraq may have yielded intelligence on the organization of the Paris attacks.

According to Channel 2, while Israel said it had no advance warning of the Paris attacks, its intelligence forces had, within hours, given France details on some of the Islamic State militants who allegedly carried them out. Without evidence, it cited an unnamed senior Israeli official as drawing a “clear operational link” between the Paris attacks, the suicide bombings in a predominantly Shi’ite suburb of Beirut on Thursday and the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsular in October.

Last year, a Western diplomat revealed that Israel was providing Washington and its regional allies fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria with information from international travel databases about Western citizens suspected of aiding or joining the militants.

Netanyahu repeated his call for European Jews to leave Europe and emigrate to Israel, where he claims they will be safe from jihadis intent on their destruction and the conquest of the “civilised” West. His real motivation is not their safety, but Israel/Palestine’s demographics.

Of Israel’s 8 million population, about 1.6 million, or 20 percent, are Palestinian, while a further 4.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza. Without a Palestinian mini-state, the Palestinian population, whose fertility rate is higher than that of Israeli Jews, will soon exceed that of the Jewish population.

But even this consideration is subordinate to Netanyahu’s political efforts to equate the Palestinian opposition to Israel’s occupation with Islamic terrorism and align this with the US-led “global war on terror,” with its focus on the oil-rich Middle East.

Netanyahu also wants to utilise the Paris events to reverse a certain deterioration of relations with the European Union. At the end of last year, the General Court of the European Union removed Hamas from its list of terrorist organizations, saying the inclusion of the group was not based on a “concrete examination” of Hamas’ actions, but on “imputations derived from the media and the Internet.”

A Spanish court has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, ex-defence minister Ehud Barak, former deputy prime ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Eli Yishai and former state minister Benny Begin for their roles in the 2010 attack on the Mavi Marmara Freedom Flotilla seeking to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza. Israeli naval commandos killed nine Turkish peace activists, including one with dual American citizenship, and injured dozens more on board the Mavi Marmara.

In the wake of the barbaric Paris terror attacks, everyone is arguing over what we should do to stop further terrorism.

Some say we need more war against Islamic countries … or more spying … or more crackdowns on our liberties.

In reality – despite what the talking heads may say – the methods for stopping future attacks are well known …

I. Stop Overthrowing the Moderates and Arming the Crazies

We know it’s a difficult concept to grasp, but if we want to stop terrorism we should – wait for it – stopsupporting terrorists.

Specifically, we’re arming the most violent radicals in the Middle East, as part of a really stupidgeopolitical strategy to overthrow leaders we don’t like (more details below). And see this, this, this, thisand this. And – strangely – we’re overthrowing the moderate Arabs who stabilized the region and deniedjihadis a foothold.

Indeed, the U.S. and its allies are directly responsible for creating and supplying ISIS.  As an internal Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document produced recently shows, the U.S. knew that the actions of “the West, Gulf countries and Turkey” in Syria might create a terrorist group like ISIS and an Islamic CALIPHATE.

Indeed, the former head of the DIA explained:

It was a willful decision [by America] to … support an insurgency that had salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood ….

If we want to stop terrorism, we need to stop supporting the terrorists.

II. Stop Supporting the Dictators Who Fund Terrorists

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest sponsor of radical Islamic terrorists.  The Saudis have backed ISIS and many other brutal terrorist groups. And the most pro-ISIS tweets  allegedly come from Saudi Arabia.

According to sworn declarations from a 9/11 Commissioner and the Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry Into 9/11, the Saudi government backed the 9/11 hijackers (see section VII for details).

Saudi Arabia is the hotbed of the most radical Muslim terrorists in the world: the Salafis (both ISIS and Al Qaeda are Salafis).

And the Saudis – with U.S. support – back the radical “madrassas” in which Islamic radicalism was spread.

And yet the U.S. has been supporting the Saudis militarily, with NSA intelligence and in every other way possible for 70 years.

In addition, top American terrorism experts say that U.S. support for brutal and tyrannical countries in the Middle east – like Saudi Arabia – is one of the top motivators for Arab terrorists.

U.S. and NATO-supported Turkey is also massively supporting ISIS, provided chemical weapons used in the jihadi’s massacre of civilians, and has been bombing ISIS’ main on-the-ground enemy – Kurdish soldiers – using its air force.  And some of the Turkish people also seem to be unsympathetic to the victims of terrorism.

The U.S.-backed dictatorships in Qatar and Bahrain also massively fund ISIS.

So if we stop supporting the tyrannies in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Bahrain, we’ll get a two-fold reduction in terror:

(1) We’ll undermine the main terrorism supporters

And …

(2) We’ll take away one of the main motivations driving terrorists: our support for the most repressive, brutal Arab dictatorships

What a concept!

III. Stop Bombing and Invading When a Negotiated Settlement Is Offered

The U.S. rejected offers by Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to surrender … and instead proceeded to wage war.

Security experts – including both conservatives and liberals – agree that waging war in the Middle Eastweakens national security and increases terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

For example, James K. Feldman – former professor of decision analysis and economics at the Air Force Institute of Technology and the School of Advanced Airpower Studies – and other experts say that foreign occupation is the main cause of terrorism. University of Chicago professor Robert A. Pape – who specializes in international security affairs – agrees.

So negotiating peaceful deals will drain the swamp of terrorists created by war and invasion.

IV. Stop Imperial Conquests for Arab Oil

The U.S. has undertaken regime change against Arab leaders we don’t like for six decades. We overthrew the leader of Syria in 1949, Iran in 1953, Iraq twice, Afghanistan twice, Turkey, Libya … and other oil-rich countries.

Neoconservatives planned regime change throughout the Middle East and North Africa yet again in 1991.

Top American politicians admit that the Iraq war was about oil, not stopping terrorism (documents from Britain show the same thing). Much of the war on terror is really a fight for natural gas. Or to force the last few hold-outs into dollars and private central banking.

And the U.S. military described terror attacks on the U.S. as a “small price to pay for being a superpower“:

A senior officer on the Joint Staff told State Department counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes characterized more than once by colleagues as a “small price to pay for being a superpower”.

We’ve fought the longest and most expensive wars in American history … but we’re less secure than before, and there are more terror attacks than ever (update).

Remember, Al Qaeda wasn’t even in Iraq until the U.S. invaded that country. And the West’s Iraq wardirectly led to the creation of ISIS.

If we want to stop terrorism, we have to stop overthrowing Arab leaders and invading Arab countries to grab their oil.

V. Stop Drone Assassinations of Innocent Civilians

Top CIA officers say that drone strikes increase terrorism (and see this).

The CIA – the agency in charge of drone strikes – even told Obama that drone kills can increase terrorism.

If we want to stop creating new terrorists, we have to stop the drone strikes.

VI. Stop Torture

Top terrorism and interrogation experts agree that torture creates more terrorists.

Indeed, the leaders of ISIS were motivated by U.S. torture.

Once again, we have a very current example: Charlie Hebdo-murdering Frenchterrorist Cherif Kouchitold a court in 2005 that he wasn’t radical until he learned about U.S. torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

If we want to stop creating new terrorists, we have to stop torturing … permanently.

VII. Stop Mass Surveillance

Top security experts agree that mass surveillance makes us MORE vulnerable to terrorists.

Indeed, even the NSA admits that it’s collecting too MUCH information to stop terror attacks.

Stop it.

VIII. Stop Covering Up 9/11

Government officials agree that 9/11 was state-sponsored terrorism … they just disagree on which state was responsible.

Because 9/11 was the largest terror attack on the U.S. in history – and all of our national security strategies are based on 9/11 – we can’t stop terror until we get to the bottom of what really happened, and which state was behind it.

Many high-level American officials – including military leaders, intelligence officials and 9/11 commissioners – are dissatisfied with the 9/11 investigations to date.

The Co-Chair of the congressional investigation into 9/11 – Bob Graham – and 9/11 Commissioner and former Senator Bob Kerrey are calling for either a “permanent 9/11 commission” or a new 9/11 investigation to get to the bottom of it.

The Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee (Bob Graham) said that the Paris terror attack, ISIS, and other terrorist developments are a result of failing to stand up to Saudi Arabia and declassify the 9/11 investigation’s report about Saudi involvement in 9/11:

The 9/11 chairs, Ron Paul, and numerous other American politicians have called for declassification, as well.

Again, others have different ideas about who was behind 9/11. But until we get to the bottom of it, terror attacks will continue.

IX.  Stop Doing It Ourselves

The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan – Lt. General William Odom said:

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.

(audio here).

The Washington Post reported in 2010:

The United States has long been an exporter of terrorism, according to a secret CIA analysis released Wednesday by the Web site WikiLeaks.

Wikipedia notes:

Chomsky and Herman observed that terror was concentrated in the U.S. sphere of influence in the Third World, and documented terror carried out by U.S. client states in Latin America. They observed that of ten Latin American countries that had death squads, all were U.S. client states.

***

They concluded that the global rise in state terror was a result of U.S. foreign policy.

***

In 1991, a book edited by Alexander L. George [the Graham H. Stuart Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Stanford University] also argued that other Western powers sponsored terror in Third World countries. It concluded that the U.S. and its allies were the main supporters of terrorism throughout the world.

Indeed, the U.S. has created death squads in Latin America, Iraq and Syria.

Some in the American military have intentionally tried to “out-terrorize the terrorists”. As Truthoutnotes:

Both [specialists Ethan McCord and Josh Stieber] say they saw their mission as a plan to “out-terrorize the terrorists,” in order to make the general populace more afraid of the Americans than they were of insurgent groups. In the interview with [Scott] Horton, Horton pressed Stieber:

“… a fellow veteran of yours from the same battalion has said that you guys had a standard operating procedure, SOP, that said – and I guess this is a reaction to some EFP attacks on y’all’s Humvees and stuff that killed some guys – that from now on if a roadside bomb goes off, IED goes off, everyone who survives the attack get out and fire in all directions at anybody who happens to be nearby … that this was actually an order from above. Is that correct? Can you, you know, verify that?

Stieber answered:

“Yeah, it was an order that came from Kauzlarich himself, and it had the philosophy that, you know, as Finkel does describe in the book, that we were under pretty constant threat, and what he leaves out is the response to that threat. But the philosophy was that if each time one of these roadside bombs went off where you don’t know who set it … the way we were told to respond was to open fire on anyone in the area, with the philosophy that that would intimidate them, to be proactive in stopping people from making these bombs …”

Terrorism is defined as:

The use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

So McCord and Stieber are correct: this constitutes terrorism by American forces in Iraq.  And Americanofficials have admitted that the U.S. has engaged in numerous false flag attacks.

Indeed, many top experts – including government officials – say that America is the largest sponsor of terror in the world … largely through the work of the CIA. And see this.

Stop Throwing Bodies In the River

Defenders of current government policy say: “we have to do something to stop terrorists!”

Yes, we do …

But we must also stop doing the 9 things above which increase terrorism. We have to stop “throwing new bodies in the river.”

But the powers-that-be don’t want to change course … they gain tremendous power and influence through our current war on terror strategies.

For example, the military-complex grows rich through war … so endless war is a feature – not a bug – of our foreign policy.

Torture was about building a false justification for war.

Mass surveillance is about economic and diplomatic advantage and crushing dissent.

Supporting the most radical Muslim leaders is about oil and power … “a small price to pay” to try to dominate the world.

A leading advisor to the U.S. military – the Rand Corporation – released a study in 2008 called “How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida“. The report confirms what experts have been saying for years: the war on terror is actually weakening national security (see this, this and this).

As a press release about the study states:

“Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism.”

We, the People, have to stand up and demand that our power-hungry leaders stop doing the things which give them more power … but are guaranteed to increase terrorism against us, the civilian population.

Postscript:  It’s not yet clear whether any of the terrorists were “refugees”, and some say that ISISWANTS to stop all refugees from leaving Syria and Iraq. However, we also take the risk of infiltration of refugee groups by terrorists very seriously.

The bottom line is that we have to stop throwing new bodies in the river, so that we drastically reduce the amount of terrorists in the first place.

The biotech firm Editas Medicine says that humans who have had their DNA genetically modified could exist within the next 2 years. The company announced that it will soon start the first trials of what it calls a groundbreaking new technique.

U.S.-based Editas is striving to become the first lab in the world to edit the DNA of patients suffering from leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a genetic condition that causes severe vision loss at birth. Some LCA patients also experience central nervous system conditions, such as epilepsy, developmental delays and motor skill impairment.

LCA is said to be caused by defects in a gene responsible for the creation of a protein that is vital to vision. Editas Medicine scientists believe they can fix the mutated DNA using gene-editing technology known as CRISPRs.

CRISPRs, which stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” allows scientists to edit genes “with precision, efficiency and flexibility,” Gizmodo explained in a May 5, 2015 article. Researchers have reportedly been able to create monkeys with targeted mutations and prevent HIV infection in human cells using this piece of biotechnology.

In early May, Chinese scientists said they’d successfully applied CRISPRs to nonviable human embryos, suggesting that the technology could someday be used to treat any genetic disease. It might even be used to create “designer babies” in the future, though that day is a long ways off.

Editas Medicine hopes to start a CRISPR trial with blind patients in 2017. It would be the first time the technology was ever used on humans.

But there are reasons to proceed cautiously. Every “good” medical breakthrough comes with risks and is a double-edged sword. Even penicillin, perhaps one of the simplest and most life-saving inventions in recorded history, is now overused and contributes to antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

This comes from the journal New Eastern Outlook:

“In reality, all genetic editing, especially when it alters the genetic material of subsequent generations, represents a potential threat to the genetic heritage of the entire planet with potential consequences we may still not fully understand. In a world where the “science is final” regarding humanity’s impact on the planet’s climate, demanding “urgent action” to stop or reverse it, the absence of a similar impetus behind stopping the contamination of our planet’s genetic heritage seems suspiciously hypocritical if not utterly reckless and even intentional.

[…]

Weaponization, accidents and even the prospect of globalized corporations finding, then making inaccessible the cures to diseases and conditions affecting millions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease are all threats we now face, whether we would like to admit it or not. One point the West correctly made upon its hand wringing over China’s most recent and reckless leap forward, was that the matter of biotechnology’s profound impact on the human genome and the genetic heritage of the entire planet is no longer the subject of a “future” scenario. It is a matter of present concern.”

The real question many are asking is if we should really be manipulating nature in such a way.

Sources:

The Telegraph

The measures being taken by the government of President François Hollande in response to Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris constitute an unprecedented attack on democratic rights.

The Socialist Party (PS) government has declared a state of emergency and mobilized more than 100,000 security personnel throughout the country, including regular police, gendarmes, paramilitary riot police and military forces. It is impossible to walk the streets of any major city without running into individuals decked out in camouflage or dressed in black, toting automatic rifles. These paramilitary forces have been given the power to raid any home and arrest or kill anyone declared a threat, with no opposition from within the political or media establishment.

Now Hollande is proposing to amend the French Constitution to allow the president to decree emergency rule, extendable indefinitely, and vastly expand the powers granted to the army and police. The proposal, published online, provides the legal basis for transforming France into a presidential dictatorship.

The existing 1955 law grants the president and the security forces far-ranging powers during a state of emergency. They can carry out warrantless searches and seizures, impose curfews and ban public assemblies, detain and order the house arrest of anyone “whose activity proves dangerous to security and public order,” and dissolve any organization linked to people under house arrest that “participates in, facilitates or incites” disturbances of public order.

The changes introduced by the Socialist Party’s constitutional amendment make the law even more ominous. President Hollande has declared that he intends to renew it as long as France faces a threat from any terrorist group similar to ISIS, i.e., for an indefinite period of time.

An examination of the amendment makes clear, however, that the measures are not about fighting ISIS, which in any case emerged from the NATO powers’ own policy of sponsoring Islamist militias as proxy forces to wage war for regime-change in Syria. The horrific attacks in Paris are the pretext for implementing dictatorial measures that cannot be rationally explained by the threat posed by ISIS.

Under the cover of fighting ISIS, the French state is giving itself absolute powers against anyone it calls a threat to “security and public order.” This vague, all-embracing category has long been used against the constitutionally-protected right to strike and protest—as in the Socialist Party’s decision last year to ban protests against the Israeli state’s war in Gaza.

The legal changes introduced by the PS document effectively make any expression of oppositional sentiment potential grounds for arrest. Instead of allowing police to detain persons whose “activity proves dangerous for public security and order,” the amended law allows them to detain anyone “who gives reason to believe that his behavior constitutes a threat to security and public order.” The PS explains that this allows police to target “people who attracted the attention of police or intelligence services by their behavior, friendships, statements, or plans.”

The implications of these proposals are immense. To arrest and detain someone, police will have to do no more than assert that they believe that this person might conceivably disturb public order at some future time, based on something this person said or posted on social media, or on someone with whom he associated.

A statement suggesting sympathy with calls for strike action against a wage cut or factory closure, for a protest against war, or for any number of legal activities would be grounds for detention and house arrest.

It is worth recalling that the law the PS is now proposing to expand was drafted in 1955 to provide the legal framework for France to carry out mass torture and repression in a failed attempt to crush the Algerian people’s struggle for independence in the 1954-1962 war against French colonial rule. This brutal war cost the lives of between 250,000 and 400,000 Algerians. It anticipated and fed into deep social tensions within France that erupted in the general strike of May-June 1968.

The current moves to effectively dismantle democratic rights in France are motivated by a similar crisis of class rule. First, as its ultimately unsuccessful attempt to ban last year’s Gaza war protests showed, the PS government is desperate to suppress all opposition to the militarist policies of French imperialism. In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, Hollande has moved rapidly to expand France’s bombing campaign in Syria, part of the efforts of the French ruling class to assert its interests on a world stage.

Second, bourgeois democracy can no longer handle and adjudicate the immense and increasingly uncontrollable social tensions of contemporary capitalist society. In all of the advanced capitalist countries, including France, the state is controlled by tiny, super-wealthy elites who view rising discontent among broad masses of workers with hatred and fear.

The Hollande government epitomizes the domination of the financial aristocracy. Elected on promises that “austerity was not our destiny,” Hollande soon proved to be a pro-austerity politician presiding over surging unemployment and a “zero growth” economy.

The PS turned to a strategy of trying to divert social opposition to reactionary domestic policies by means of a foreign policy based on militarism and war. As Hollande launched a war in Mali in 2013, one official told Le Point that the PS hoped it would be their version of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Falkland Islands war: a “military adventure that ensured her re-election in 1983.” Wars across France’s old colonial empire, however, have only contributed to the growing social tensions within France.

The political dynamic in France is mirrored in every major capitalist country. Since the “war on terror” began in 2001, governments throughout the world, led by the United States, have sought to erode and dismantle basic democratic rights. They have participated in the “extraordinary rendition” of prisoners for torture, mass warrantless wiretapping and extra-judicial drone murder. The domestic deployment of heavily-armed military units is now common.

From the police suppression of the 2011 youth riots in London to last year’s heavily-armed crackdown on protests against the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, these measures are ever more clearly directed at the suppression of class struggle.

There is virtually no constituency for the defense of democratic rights within the political or corporate establishment. That task falls to the working class, which retains a deep commitment to democratic principles. However, there is no room for political complacency. The ruling class is moving very far with dictatorial measures to deal with internal crises for which it has no solution.

The defense of democratic rights and opposition to police-state forms of rule must be rooted in the independent political mobilization of the working class, based on a struggle against imperialist war and social inequality and their source in the capitalist system.

Washington Bolivar, an indigenous activist in Peru has received another sinister death threat in the immediate wake of his efforts to challenge the destruction of Amazon rainforest for timber extraction and conversion to oil palm.

In the course of the last month, human rights defender, Mr Bolivar received the following handwritten and explicit notes in quick succession:

“WASHINGTON…WE ARE GOING TO KILL YOU IF YOU KEEP ON SCREWING US. THOSE LANDS ARE NOT YOURS… YOU AND YOUR FAMILY WILL NOT LIVE. LET US WORK IF YOU DO NOT WANT ALL OF YOU TO DIE…”

The precise source of the threat is unknown at this time, but local activists and community leaders suspect that it refers to Mr Bolivar’s well publicized support of the struggle of the Shipibo community of Santa Clara de Uchunya in the Ucayali region of Peru. Over the last year the community has been actively opposing the destruction of over 5000 ha of their traditional forests for conversion to a palm oil plantation by a Peruvian palm oil company, Plantaciones de Pucallpa.

Plantaciones de Pucallpa is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and is linked to a group of companies controlled by businessman Dennis Melka and known in Peru to be part of the so called ‘Melka group’.

As highlighted by a recent FPP press release marking the visit of a community representative to the UK, the community’s struggle has been partly successful. On the 2^nd September 2015, Peru’s central government concluded that the deforestation was illegal and suspended the operations (report in Spanish only).

As a result of the denunciation, FPP now understands that the RSPO will initiate independent investigations into the case.

Mr Bolivar has informed the relevant authorities about the latest threat including the Human rights ombudsman and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, while he lodged similar complaints in September 2015 after receiving other death threats at that time, he feels that the Government has failed to take any effective measures to protect him, his family and the community.

Understandably, Mr Bolivar remains extremely concerned given the climate of fear and violence in Peru in which almost 60 human rights and environmental defenders have been killed between 2002 and 2014. These include the well publicized assassinations of Edwin Chota and three other Asháninka leaders from the village of Saweto in Ucayali in 2014.

“I am concerned but won’t remain silent, the world should know what Melka’s companies are doing to our lands. They destroy our forest and our biodiversity.  The Government fails to stop this tragedy and then leaves our human rights defenders exposed to death threats and homicides.  The company benefits from this environment while our people and the forests suffer.” 

Meanwhile, Tom Griffiths from FPP’s Responsible Finance Programme highlighted that “the Forest Peoples Programme is glad RSPO is going to investigate these violations of its standards. We also trust that the RSPO will use all its influence with the concerned companies to ensure that no harm comes to community activists like Mr Bolivar.  Mr Bolivar is now very well known internationally.  All eyes are closely watching both the behavior of the Government and the Company in Ucayali.”

Robert Guimaraes, President of FECONAU, the indigenous organization that represents the village of Santa Clara de Uchunya has reiterated that behind the violence lies the failure of Peru’s government to address its obligation to provide secure legal recognition for indigenous peoples’ lands and rights and to follow through on its international pledges to protect forests.

“Community lands were issued to the company by the regional government of Ucayali in complete disregard for their legal rights to their traditional lands and with no process of consultation or consent. I am calling on human rights agencies and the international donors supporting Peru’s forest protection plans to insist that the State meet its obligations to protect indigenous peoples’ lands and rights”.

Peru has made ambitious commitments to stop deforestation as part of its climate change mitigation strategy, pledging to reduce net deforestation to zero by 2021. However, as exposed by this case and a 2014 report these promises are undermined by gaping loopholes in Peru’s legal framework and endemic corruption.

On repeated occasions since 2010, Peru’s government has recognized the centrality of securing indigenous peoples’ land rights as part of its climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy.  As a result it has secured high profile financial support from international donors including the World Bank and the governments of Norway and Germany. Despite this, these promises have failed to materialize and approximately 20 million ha of indigenous lands remain untitled and continue to be issued to mining, oil, gas and agribusiness interests (for more information click here).

In December at the UN’s Climate conference in Paris, Peru will announce its own voluntary commitment to climate change mitigation referred to as INDC’s. The measures include actions to protect forests yet other than a cursory reference to promoting participation of indigenous peoples, there are no clear commitments to safeguard indigenous lands and protect those defending the forests.

Plantaciones de Pucallpa is one of many companies registered in Peru with links to a complex corporate network effectively controlled by Dennis Melka. Mr Melka is a businessman who founded the Malaysian agribusiness company Asian Plantations whose operations have been similarly controversial in Sarawak, Malaysia. Read this report for more information about the operations of the Melka group in Peru and Malaysia.

The Anglo-American legal tradition is in serious trouble if not a single major U.S. politician is willing to suggest that the most effective way to combat international terrorism is through law and the courts.

Terrorism is a crime under the United States code, defined at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2331 and 2332b . It sits just a few subchapters away from piracy, another international crime which is also adjudicated, relatively successfully, by the U.S. legal system. It is probably tough to remember, but the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Yousef, was tried in a civilian court. He is currently serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado, at a federal Supermax prison.

It would reflect a great deal of strength for a politician to argue that law will dispose of terrorism. First, most of us already know that courts can successfully handle heinous international crimes. At Nuremberg, judges were able to weigh evidence and convict individuals who committed some of the most deeply offensive crimes in history. This work continues in the Hague today with the International Criminal Court. Most international scholars agree that such efforts are largely positive in helping to close the chapter on war and to move a society forward in a more positive, legally-minded direction. If a court was capable of adjudicating the Holocaust, it is surely capable of dealing with international terrorism.

There is strength in affirming fundamental values on which a civilized society is based. We cannot have a world in which some crimes go before a civilian judge, and some crimes are subject to summary execution by the President through a drone strike. In all matters of justice, separate-but-equal is a fatally flawed directive. Historically, the Anglo-American tradition has sought to limit executive power and preserve the ability of a neutral judge to adjudicate disputes — values that have been deeply weakened by 15 years of unending war and which now must be reclaimed or forever lost.

There is strength in admitting that the military approach to terrorism has not only failed, it has made the problem significantly worse. Using a bomb to solve terrorism creates a hydra where chopping off one head only produces three more. Kill Baghdadi and someone else will take his throne, or perhaps three more. Is this not what created ISIS? Is it really so difficult to see how the use of the military in the Middle East has opened the gates of Hell? Is no one really going to question the insanity of the U.S. simultaneously bombing ISIS (fighting Assad) and Assad (fighting ISIS)?

There is strength in dealing with the eventual even-handedness of justice. It is an unfortunate truth that Western countries have also, too, committed crimes since 9/11. Those crimes will require an accounting before a judge, at least some day. And in particular, there will never be peace in the Middle East without an answer for the Iraq War, which will be recognized one day by all peoples as one of the gravest international crimes since World War II. This was a war that was built on lies and sold to a fearful public like the vilest of snake oils. And its bitterness remains. The Iraq War destroyed a country, killed millions of innocent parents and their children, and is the caustic source of the violence that now roils the Middle East and strikes into Paris.  Justice requires an answer for the Iraq War —  a good and healthy thing as such justice will act as a lesson to the future that the human species will never survive if it relies on war, particularly at a time when so much destruction can be committed by so few in number.

Now, the specter of fascism creeps in this petty pace as politicians in Europe and the U.S. create false enemies and denounce refugees, threaten more war, and pander to the ugliest motivations of each of their respective nations. There is strength in rejecting this fascism.

The world should put together its finest legal minds from all countries — from the U.S., from Latin America, from Europe, from Africa, from Asia, and yes, from the Middle East. Let these minds define the problem, propose a legal solution, and then either work with the International Criminal Court in the Hague, or set up a special tribunal to adjudicate the issue of terrorism. Let that court issue warrants, and make sure that the world will cooperate with that court to arrest those who are wanted. Give the accused a lawyer, have a trial, and issue a sentence. Put the guilty in jail. And acquit those for whom there is not enough evidence, and let them go.

And after the world has set up that process, the world should do the same thing for those on all sides who are committing crimes. All people should take a look at the log in each of their own eyes, particularly after analyzing the speck in that of the other. The people of every nation must look into their hearts and their minds to figure out why governments, everywhere, are getting away with murder. The world needs to put a stop to that, as well.

In the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, there are three important questions to ask. 

1) Cui bono? 

2) What country could surpass and thwart the sophisticated French intelligence and surveillance system?

3) Why are outcry and public outpourings of support and grief so muted or entirely absent when other countries are invaded or attacked by our forces,

France is on alert since the Charlie Hebdo and market attacks, with heightened security due to President Hollande attending a public sporting event. Who has the resources to wage a coordinated, well-armed, utterly secret attack across Paris and escape notice despite surveillance?

The answer is not “magical evil people,” unless you’ve been watching too much TV or too many Western press conferences.

Look at what is happening in Syria. Look at the timing. There are no coincidences.

• The U.S., allies, and ISIS are losing in Syria
• The U.S. is losing support from European allies
• The U.S. and allies support ISIS
• The U.S. and allies want control of pipelines, resources, and the region

U.S., allies, and ISIS losing Syria

Russia, assisting the Syrian government, has destroyed almost 2000 terrorist targets in a few short weeks – ammunition depots, command posts, training camps, fortified positions.[1] The U.S.-led coalition, though claiming to fight terrorists for over a year, has had few if any results. Syrians are retaking their country with the help of Russia, Iran, and Iraq.

The U.S. has repeatedly refused to cooperate with Russia or Syria. The U.S. and its partners kill Syrians, destroy vital national Syrian infrastructure, and lie about Syria and Russia.

Discussions are underway for Syrian political solutions. In contrast, the U.S. funds and trains mercenary terrorist forces to overthrow the democratically-elected and popular President Bashar al-Assad. U.S. Special Envoy Daniel Rubenstein says Syrians may not even be part of the envisioned Western-created government.[2]

The Russian proposals and assistance are gaining popularity internationally.

U.S. losing European support

European leaders talk about working with Russia to fight ISIS and other terrorist groups. Members of the Bundestag (German Parliament) visited Moscow recently. Europeans are being hurt by sanctions. Many oppose U.S.-NATO actions against Russia. The refugee crisis is destabilizing Europe – a powerful impetus to work for peace in Syria.

U.S.-coalition support of terrorism

The U.S. and allies support ISIS and other terrorist groups with active, ongoing aid — supplies, weapons, logistics, medical aid, and protection. This is well documented. These aren’t just a few “mistaken” drops of weapons and supplies to ISIS forces. Turkey, Israel, the UK and France are all involved.[3]

John McCain has been repeatedly photographed with these groups and their leaders.[4] Instead of attacking ISIS, the U.S. and Israel have also attacked and murdered Syrian soldiers defending their country.

U.S.-European regional goals

The U.S. and allies want control of pipelines, oil and gas, and the region.[5] This has been their objective for decades. The U.S. began terrorizing Syria from the beginning, launching its first CIA coup against Syria’s newly formed government in 1949.[6] The U.S. hasn’t stopped since that time.[7] The British and French have been at this even longer.

The military mission by all coalition partners supports powerful economic and financial players. U.S. actions have nothing to do with “American values”, U.S. defense, or the American people. U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler said,

The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag… War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious…I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street… I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents…[8]

Information warfare is waged by U.S. and Western governments to hide what’s going on. The mainstream news media docilely reads whatever cover story it is handed.[9]

Destabilization and/or installation of puppet dictatorships are important to attain U.S./NATO goals.[10] Igniting ethnic feuds and rivalries and supplying weapons keep people divided, distracted, and killing each other, while the U.S. and coalition members loot the region of resources. The powerful American, UK, French, Turkish, Israeli, Saudi and coalition militaries are more than capable of guarding their own critical infrastructure in the midst of this created chaos. They have no qualms with ignoring national sovereignty and destroying people. General Wesley Clarke stated in 2007,

“We’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”[11] [12]

But the European public is pushing for peace, especially due to the refugee crisis. What a perfect time to re-galvanize support for U.S./NATO power and goals with a terror attack.

The third question is actually several questions and follows President Assad’s statement that this has been happening in Syria for five years.[13]

3) Why are outcry and public outpourings of support and grief so muted or entirely absent when other countries are invaded or attacked by our forces, and thousands of people killed by our bombs, missiles, bullets, drones, cluster munitions, white phosphorus, depleted uranium, and by sanctions? Libya immediately comes to mind as well as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and eastern Ukraine. Over 500,000 children are dead in Iraq just due to U.S. sanctions in the 1990s. How many Westerners opposed that? How many mourned those hundreds of thousands of dead children due to Western terrorism?

Is it terrorism only when it’s done to “us”?

Do we ignore or even applaud our own countries’ terroristic and illegal actions, especially if the people in the countries we attack are a different ethnicity or race or religion? Europe and America have spawned many of the worst examples of terrorism in humanity’s history. How many millions of Syrian people are dead or are refugees because of French and Western terrorism?

How many Libyans, Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and others have been tortured, raped or murdered because of the terrorism created and funded by France and others?

Are racism and permissible genocide what really drive our community spirit as well as our foreign policies?

American terrorism has a long, long history across the globe; Syria is just one of the chapters.

The School of the Americas in Ft. Benning, Georgia, has trained death squads and torturers for many years. A protest in November will once again call for its closure.

NATO’s Operation Gladio and the “stay behind armies” have manufactured terror in Europe and elsewhere since the end of World War II. France has been in the crosshairs of the U.S. before, as have many other countries which weren’t firm enough vassal states. There were 31 assassination attempts against President De Gaulle which were traced to the United States and NATO.[14] When there is even a whiff of neutrality, Washington sends its hit men.[15]

Wikileaks just released evidence of John McCain’s involvement in a plot to shoot down an American plane over Syria and blame it on Russia.[16] In the 1960s, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff plotted similar false flag terrorist actions to blame on Cuba in Operation Northwoods.[17] We know that President George W. Bush proposed a similar action against Iraq because of the leaked “Downing Street” memo. Washington will do anything to keep its dominance and economic power.

Any school child can easily find a wealth of documentation on this, yet most Americans haven’t a clue. Why? Because they “believe” in Americanism and exceptionalism. They don’t read widely, they don’t ask questions, they don’t investigate, they don’t think, and they won’t protest. This is very, very dangerous. In Nazi Germany, Germans were afraid and many were inactive, but they weren’t blind. Many Americans are willfully blind, self-focused, and lazy. But what will happen when the mercenaries killing other people come knocking on their doors? They forget Martin Niemoller’s poem.[18]

Already, after the Paris attacks, the knives are out for Syria, the false evidence waved in front of the camera. We now know that France was tracking the purported culprits for years, and then stopped.[19] Coincidentally, the French had already brought their largest warship, the Charles De Gaulle, to the Syrian coast just in time for the attacks, and France has now bombed inside Syria, without Syrian permission.

Cui bono?

It is the responsibility of each person to think and see through the charades and the tragedies, to discern the real shapes hiding in the shadows. It is the obligation of each person to expose these crimes, past and present, and hold all the perpetrators responsible.

Below is a sample petition to use in your community to submit to elected officials, to get local resolutions passed by cities and counties, and to publish as an ad or editorial in your local newspaper with support from local peace-promoting groups and individuals.

Silence is consent.

The time to act is very, very short.

Educate, expose, and demand justice now.

Right wing Labour MPs have launched a full-scale coup against Jeremy Corbyn, and against the members of the party they represent, writes Oliver Tickell. Their plan is simple – backed by mainstream media, to discredit him so utterly that even his supporters turn against him – and elect a new ‘heir to Blair’ leader.

There’s no doubt about it. Shooting to kill is all the vogue.

No, that’s not terrorists I’m talking about. The target is a mild mannered gentleman of 66 who wouldn’t hurt a fly, if he could help it.

And that’s the problem. As David Cameron talks tough on shooting terrorists on Britain’s streets, bombing Syria, shooting off nuclear weapons at unnamed enemies, over half of the Labour Party’s MPs in the House of Commons gaze in admiration, open mouthed, wondering why their leader couldn’t be more like that.

Why not someone more like … Tony Blair. He talked tough, he walked tall with George W Bush, he wasn’t afraid to unleash the dogs of war on the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Moreover most of those Labour MPs who are sniping at Corbyn from the green benches of the House of Commons know which side their bread is buttered. It was Tony Blair who put them there, after all, by imposing short lists of ‘approved’ right wing candidates on local parties.

And now they are at risk in a newly energised left wing Labour Party that has just elected a genuinely progressive, pacifist, environmentalist left wing leader. All the hundreds of new members that have flooded into the party inspired by Corbyn’s combination of compassion, understanding and commitment to social, ecological and economic justice are hardly going to reselect them when the time comes.

Operation ‘kill Corbyn’

So here’s the plan: seize on any perceived weakness and attack, attack, attack. Hit hard, hit often, in public and in private. Backed up by the entire spectrum of Britain’s ‘mainstream’ media who are only to happy to join those Labour MPs in puttting the boot in.

And the objective is clear: kill Corbyn. Wipe him out. Discredit him so utterly that not only will MPs and media unite against him, but even his supporters in the wider Labour Party will lose faith and either leave the party in disgust, or refuse to re-elect him after the leadership challenge they are building up to.

It all began with the debate on Trident when Corbyn said he would in no circumstances commit the grave international crime of using nuclear weapons, whose detonation on any likely target would inevitably kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and shower large parts of the Earth with intensely radioactive fallout.

It picked up steam with Corbyn’s unenthusiastic response for the assassination of the ISIS terrorist ‘Jihadi John’ in Syria in a UK-supported drone strike – demanding to be told of its legal basis.

“I would only authorise actions that are legal in the terms of international law”, he told ITV news. “I am awaiting an explanation of where the legal basis was for that incident that went on.” International law? When did that ever have anything to do with anything? It didn’t stop Tony Blair, did it?

And now he wants to deprive the UK of a chance to exhibit its national virility by bombing ISIS target in Syria, even denying his MPs a free vote. “I’m just not convinced that a bombing campaign will actually solve anything”, he told Sky News. “It may well make the situation far worse.

“We can’t go on in a cycle of wars and destruction, one after the other after the other, which is what we’re going through at the moment … I want us to be able to put together a proposal, a series of measures that do enhance the security of people in this country.”

Outrageous!

The dog that didn’t bark

And then there was his interview with the BBC’s perspicacious political editor Laura Kuenssberg, broadcast on Monday, in which he said – among many other things – that he would prioritise the prevention of terrorism over ‘shooting to kill’ terrorists on the streets.

“I’m not happy with the shoot-to-kill policy in general”, he told her. “I think that is quite dangerous and I think can often can be counterproductive. I think you have to have security that prevents people firing off weapons where you can, there are various degrees for doing things as we know. But the idea you end up with a war on the streets is not a good thing.”

These are the words that launched a thousand attacks. Note – there was no outright refusal to allow security forces to shoot and kill terrorists in all circumstances. That’s what he meant, surely, by the words “there are various degrees for doing things as we know.”

But first, this was just the concluding few seconds of a long (nine minute) interview in which he spoke in careful and measured terms: asking where ISIS was getting its money and weapons were coming from; demanding enhanced security in Britain and across Europe to prevent any further attacks like those in Paris; pointing out that there was no such thing as Al Qaida in Iraq before the war began in 2003; seeking the involvement of the United Nations in Syria; highlighting the role of communities in tackling extremism; calling on Cameron to rescind police cuts that would damage their ability to combat terrorism; condemning ISIS in firm and absolute terms; and seeking political rather than merely military solutions to international problems.

In short, there was absolutely nothing that any informed and rational person could disagree with.

And here’s the mystery. Kuenssberg is always good at nailing down the key, defining question. And the obvious follow-up to Corbyn’s reluctance to endorse “war on our streets” was, surely: “But just to be completely clear for our listeners Mr Corbyn, would you or would you not agree to the use of lethal force against terrorists if that was necessary to save civilian lives?”

But this is the question that was not put. Did Kuenssberg know that she had what she wanted ‘in the can’ and that any further question would only detract from its impact? Was a BBC producer yelling “Cut!” into her ear?

Because what Corbyn would have said in answer to that question is surely something like this: “The overwhelming priority must be to stop war breaking out on our streets in the first place. But obviously yes, if a terrorist attack is taking place and civilian lives are at risk, security forces must respond appropriately and at times that will mean shooting and killing terrorists – not as a kneejerk response but as a last resort. Because what we should be trying to do is to disarm and arrest them and hold them accountable for their crimes.”

He could also have raised the case of Jean Charles da Silva e de Menezes, shot dead at Stockwell Tube Station, London, on 22nd July 2005 by officers of the London Metropolitan Police who had mistakely identified him as one of ‘7/7’ bombers. He was entirely innocent of having anything to do with terrorism.

To understand is to resist

The first thing is for us all to understand what is going on. The rush to attack and denounce Corbyn is not based on anything he said. After all, what’s to disagree with?

It is not a sign that a debate is taking place in the Labour Party. The ferocity and intensity of the attacks is, on the contrary, intended precisely to prevent rational debate and forestall any reasonable discussion of the issues.

The purpose is simple. It is to brand Corbyn a softie, a cissy, an ex-hippy peacenik, unfit to rule, weak on defence, a risk to national security, a left-wing corduroy-jacketed beardie scarcely fit to serve as a humanities lecturer in third rate ex-Polytechnic University.

It is above all to present him as, and render him, unelectable – a man who can only lead Labour to abject failure in any future general election. And so convince the great mass of the Labour Party to turn against their failed left-wing champion and elect in his place an ‘heir to Blair’. Someone more like … David Cameron?

So first, understand. Second, don’t fall for it. Third, resist.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Recent media reports indicate that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have contracted Eritrea’s government for assistance in the War on Yemen, using the East African state as a transit and logistics base for their operations, as well as 400 of its troops for cannon fodder in Aden.

Add to it the Qatari soldiers that have already been present on the ground for a few years to “mediate” the border dispute with Djibouti, and the most important members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have unexpectedly converged in what many might think to be among one of the most unlikeliest of places. While it may have been difficult to foresee this happening, in hindsight it actually makes quite a lot of sense, and contrary to the conventional assessment that this is about Yemen, the argument can be made that it’s also just as much about Ethiopia as well. Unbeknownst to many, Qatar is the “ox driving the cart” in this case, and whether they like it or not, the rest of the GCC states will be reluctantly forced to follow its destabilizing lead if Doha decides to throw Ethiopia into chaos.

The research expands on the briefing first laid out by South Front and should be seen as a continuation of their original work. It begins by setting the context for what’s been going on along the Horn of Africa lately and how the GCC’s military advances fit into the larger context of recent history. The piece then investigates the levers of influence for how Qatar could destabilize Ethiopia as well as its radical ideological motivations for doing so. Finally, the article concludes with a scenario study of how Qatar could engineer an Unconventional War to bring down Africa’s next up-and-coming power.

The Crowded Coast

Geostrategy:

The Horn of Africa is one of the most geostrategic regions in the world due to its location along the Bab-el-Mandeb strait that connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea. In a broader context, one can say that it’s one of two maritime chokepoints (the other being the Suez Canals) that link Europe with South, Southeast, and East Asia, and until the Northern Sea Route becomes operable sometime in the next decade, all sea-bound trade between the EU and these corners of Eurasia must transit through its narrow passage. As could be expected, this makes control over the strait a heightened prize for any power or combination thereof, and it’s not for naught that most Great Powers scrambled their navies to the region over the past decade ostensibly to “combat piracy”.

Come One, Come All:

What was really happening was that the US was trying to militarize the waterway under the auspices of countering “Somali pirates”, which it must be reminded, were bogeymen that were blown completely out of proportion by the Western mainstream media for premeditated geopolitical ends. The US wanted to create the conditions where the rest of the world would accept the continuous presence of its fleet operating in these strategic international waters, but precisely because their legal status, it meant that any other fleet could do the same thing on identical grounds, which is exactly what happened. While the UK and French navies were obviously there to support their American ‘big brother’, Russia, China, India, and Iran also sailed their ships there too, but for the purpose of both watching the West and symbolically showing that they won’t allow NATO to completely control this space.

The Strategic Illusion:

While the “pirate” hype has largely died down and the multilateral naval positioning over the Bab-el-Mandeb has markedly subsided since its frenzied height in the late 00s, the importance of the strait obviously hasn’t changed, and the American-initiated competition over its control merely took on another form and amphibiously migrated landward. The US joined its French partners in Djibouti by moving into Camp Lemonnier in 2001 (Paris never left the country after independence), thus giving it an on-land presence from which to project naval power if it chose to do so. It also opened up “anti-terror” facilities in Yemen during this time as well, but just like with the Djibouti base, these could also achieve the dual purpose of influencing the strait. With both of these power nodes already occupied by the US prior to the “anti-piracy race”, it might seem strange why America started such a game in the first place, but more than likely, it did so as a manifestation of the “exceptional” hubris of the Bush Administration that was also continued during the early reign of his successor.

Thus, while the non-NATO states may have felt they somehow lessened the US’ control over Bab-el-Mandeb by placing and then removing their navies from the Gul f of Aden, it was all just a carefully crafted illusion (one which hopefully resulted in the multipolar states acquiring some degree of useful information about the Western fleets). The US still retained its positions in Djibouti and Yemen, albeit without the ability to directly apply the same amount of force had its naval presence still been there in the same capacity, so nothing really changed in a simple strategic sense. That status of affairs would remain until the Yemeni Revolution finally succeeded in casting off the American- and Saudi-installed government in early 2015, which dramatically led to the US having to evacuate its military personnel from the country. For the first time since the end of the Cold War (when the Soviets had a naval base in Aden), the US didn’t’ fully control the Bab-el-Mandeb, and the strategic panic that this produced is partly why Saudi Arabia made the fateful and ill-planned decision to invade Yemen.

Bab-el-Mandeb And The War On Yemen:

The Saudis and their lackeys have succeeded in blockading the Yemeni coast and conquering Aden, thus returning most of the unipolar world’s control over their lost ‘real estate’ in this ultra-strategic region, but capitalizing on their unofficial casus belli to make sure that they can indefinitely retain control there, the GCC decided to ‘jump the pond’ to the Horn of Africa, hence its interactions with Eritrea and the contracting of Amara’s ‘services’. In a sense, Eritrea is envisioned as being the Gulf’s “back-up Yemen”, a friendly territory under its proxy influence from which punitive measures can be launched against the people of Yemen if they ever do succeed in once more nearly liberating the entirety of their country.

So long as Eritrea is under the GCC’s sway, then from a strategic-logistical standpoint, the Yemeni War of Independence will be all the much harder to win because the Saudis’ and their bloc have a ‘rear guard’ base almost directly abutting the country. The GCC’s actions in Eritrea can thus be seen as a type of “double insurance” in making sure that as many of the Yemenis remain under the Gulf boot for as long as possible, with such an unnecessary strategic consideration being seen as coming from a position of fear and weakness on their part, not strength. They fear the Yemeni militias so much that they’re preemptively creating this ‘rear guard’ supply and logistics facility in Eritrea “just in case” a counter-offensive one day manages to unsuspectingly cripple their occupying forces.

It’s appropriate at this juncture to take stock of all the international military forces currently present along the Horn of Africa. The Saudis and Emiratis now have a naval presence in Eritrea, and as South Front reported (and which was verified separately this summer), the UAE is also seeking to open a naval base in Berbera along the northern coast of Somalia in the breakaway Somaliland region. The US and France have an on-ground presence in Djibouti, but they’re also joined by the Japanese, which opened their first military base abroad since World War II in 2011 under the opportunistic ‘justification’ of “anti-piracy”. They might, however, soon be joined by China, if the rumors of Beijing eyeing the country for its first overseas base are true. China could of course call upon the convenient slogan of “anti-piracy” to justify any possible forthcoming presence, but no matter what its stated grounds for doing so are, such a base would serve the additional purpose of safeguarding the Chinese-financed Djibouti-Addis Ababa railroad to the fastest-growing economy in the world and the headquarter state of the African Union.

Gulf Interests Move Inland

Now’s a good time to elaborate more in-depth about the continental African interests that the Gulf States seek to pursue through their partnership with Eritrea. To be more specific, it’s better to look closely at Qatar’s geopolitical objectives in this case, since the tiny emirate ironically leads the regional pack in its preexisting involvement in East Africa.

Eritrean Backgrounder:

This coastal state is one of the world’s newest, having gained its independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after fighting a three-decade-long war to achieve it. Peace came only after the government in Addis Ababa, at that time run by a military entity known as “The Derg”, was dissolved in 1987 and its leader Mengistu Haile Mariam was ousted in 1991 by a coalition of ethno-centric rebel groups. Due to the near-continuous fighting that took place on its territory, post-independence Eritrea was a wreck, but President Isais Afwerki helped to achieve stability and elevated living conditions, as attested to by journalist Andre Vltchek who visited a year ago. Nevertheless, the economy is in dire straits and Eritrea is largely isolated from the world community, partly due to the border disputes it has with all of its neighbors, and also because of successful Ethiopian lobbying against it. According to Ethiopia, Eritrea supports a variety of anti-government rebel groups and even has links to Al Shabaab in Somalia.

The Qatari Connection:

The last point is extremely contentious and has never fully been proven, although to clarify a bit, a Wikileaked US diplomatic cable quoted the Somalian President accusing Qatar in 2009 of using Eritrea as a financial conduit for Al Shabaab. Considering Doha’s support to other terrorist groups such as ISIL, this doesn’t seem implausible, and it might even be that rerouted Qatari funds channeled through Eritrea (which might have received a modest cut) could be to blame for why Ethiopia would allege that its nemesis was aiding terrorists.

No matter what shape it takes, Eritrea’s direct or indirect links to Al Shabaab are one of the reasons why the UNSC initiated an arms embargo on the country in 2009 that was just renewed last month. In this connection it’s relevant to remind one of Qatar’s role in the region, and it’s that it was asked to deploy “peacekeepers” along the Eritrean-Djibouti border by each of their governments in 2010 to assist in “mediating” their border dispute. One can cynically suggest that this provided nothing more than the perfect cover for Qatar to continue supporting Al Shabaab, which as was mentioned above, it had already been doing for some time. The reason Qatar supports this terrorist group is because it’s basically a regional franchise of ISIL, and a faction of Al Shabaab had just pledged allegiance to its Arab “brothers” late last month. These two groups pursue the same radical Islamic goals that Qatar has been patronizing for years through its sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood, and ISIL and Al Shabaab are pretty much the more visibly militant and globally notorious arm of the Brotherhood in this respect.

The Afro-Eurasian Caliphate:

To get a fuller grasp of why Qatar is promoting terrorism in East Africa, one should understand the macro-regional context of Doha’s ideological ambitions. The peninsular pipsqueak uses its financial largesse to flex power disproportionate to its tiny size, and it manifests this through support of a hodgepodge of ultra-extreme Islamic groups, all of which are classified as terrorists by Russia: the Muslim Brotherhood; the Taliban; ISIL in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Sinai; and Boko Haram. Each of these terrorist groups is active in a certain geographic area, with the only ‘missing link’ being the southern vector, ergo the ideological/militant ‘necessity’ of Al Shabaab. Altogether, these terrorist organizations represent the ‘foot soldiers’ of a transnational caliphate project that Qatar and its US ally would like to see expand all throughout the central pivot of Afro-Eurasia, the “Greater Middle East” of Central Asia, the ‘conventional’ Mideast, North Africa, and East Africa. While its current prospects of success have dramatically dimmed ever since Russia’s anti-terrorist intervention in Syria, it still remains possible for Qatar and the US to actualize some aspects of this grand strategy in certain corners of their operational theater, which in this context is the Horn of Africa.

Double-Sided Chaos:

The introduction of “managed chaos” to the region via the Qatari-supported Al Shabaab terrorist group serves two main purposes. The first one is to pressure Ethiopia, which the US may feel more inclined to do if the country moves more solidly in a pro-Chinese direction in the future, and the second is to perversely use the presence of Al Shabaab to deepen its security relationship with Ethiopia by being the arsonist-firefighter that creates a problem and then ‘helps resolve’ it afterwards. It’s useful to recall that the US contracted Ethiopia to invade Somalia in 2006 in order to destroy the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a precursor of Al Shabaab, which thus strengthened the partnership between the two. Also, by keeping Islamic terrorism alive in Somalia, to whatever extent it’s present at a given moment, the US can keep the ‘justification’ open for selectively intervening in the country with drone strikes or commando raids, thus entrenching its presence in the region and turning the criminal into the ‘cop’.

The Enemy Of My Enemy:

Rewinding the focus back to Eritrea, Asmara is passively tolerant of Qatar’s Al Shabaab patronage because it could supplement its grand strategic goal of destabilizing Ethiopia. To explain, Ethiopia has previously intervened in Somalia against Islamic terrorists before and subsequently occupied the country, and the idea that its forces could continue to do so again in the future, and thus be bunkered down in another potential quagmire and spread thin in critical (and rebellious-prone) interior regions, excites Eritrean strategists. Furthermore, as will be explained more fully in the third section, there’s the potential for Al Shabaab terrorists to become the “freedom fighter” figureheads for the Somali population in Ethiopia’s eastern provinces, formally the Somali Region but also known as Ogaden. Eritrea’s most important objective is to have ethno-centric regions inside of its former colonizer achieve independence in the same manner that it did – through prolonged and militant struggle against the central government – so that its rival can never be in a position to threaten it again (let alone exist in its current state). If the Somali region just so happens to be the spark needed to set the whole federal haystack alight, then so be it, as Asmara’s reckoning goes, whether its Qatari-supported terrorism that initiates the destructive domino effect that they expect or an indigenous ethno-centric uprising.

The Big Picture:

To bring everything together in a more simple understanding, Qatar has taken the lead in destabilizing the Horn of Africa out of ideological and unipolar-loyalty reasons, and it’s using its “legal” presence in Eritrea to facilitate this. The War on Yemen provided the other main GCC states of Saudi Arabia and the UAE with a ‘plausible justification’ for also ‘getting in on the action’, knowing just as well as Qatar does that Eritrea is a ‘double-hinged’ state that can be used to simultaneously project maritime and continental influence, with the latter case being against Ethiopia.

Concerning the GCC’s newest geopolitical target, it’s one of the world’s most promising emerging economies, and from a Gulf perspective, it could also be useful in satisfying their African-directed agricultural and construction-outsourcing needs. Placing their forces in Eritrea, Ethiopia’s arch-rival and hated foe, is designed to put pressure on the rising, albeit potentially unstable, continental power and thus make it more amenable to whatever their forthcoming grand interests may be. Also, by making Eritrea an integral part of their regional military architecture, the Gulf States are essentially declaring that any aggression against it would also endanger their own interests, thereby blanketing Asmara with a de-facto security guarantee and altering Addis Ababa’s perceived existing strategic balance of power (which it had earlier assumed was relatively even).

By itself and approached from a purely geopolitical standpoint, it’s theoretically possible for Saudi Arabia and the UAE to maintain this new status quo between Eritrea and Ethiopia (perhaps even exploit it and each of those two states to their own advantage if shrewd diplomacy is applied), but the presence of Qatar, the ‘loose cannon’, means that the entire arrangement is inherently unstable and subject to sudden change. Qatar has proven itself much more prone to impromptu outbursts of rhetorical rage than any of the other Gulf States, and its comparatively younger leader (only 35 years old) is much less versed in the art of statecraft than his peers. Being so hot-headed and already harboring an inferiority complex vis-à-vis his larger and more mature neighbors, Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is inclined to give the full terrorist ‘go-ahead’ whenever he feels like it (or if he ‘thinks’ it would be of strategic use for him), meaning that a Qatari-sponsored Islamic destabilization of Ethiopia cannot at all be discounted, and must be astutely prepared for by the country’s authorities.

Towards The Unconventional War Scenario

GCC Support:

The final section of the research discusses the Unconventional War scenario that Qatar could help engineer alongside Eritrea and Al Shabaab (one of its ideological ‘children’, it could be argued) to throw Ethiopia into chaos. Once this process begins, Saudi Arabia and the UAE could be expected to assist Qatar and this scenario to some extent, knowing that Doha is much too tiny and inexperienced to ever fully control the larger developments that it helps to unleash (the “Arab Spring” Color Revolutions are a case in point), and they thus want to be in a position to gain as much self-benefit from what may turn out to be an irreversible course of events. Correspondingly, with these self-motivated interests in mind, they could act as force multipliers in their own way for advancing the chaos that Qatar created, thereby ushering in a chain reaction that could lend crucial and ultra-destructive force to the scenario that will be discussed.

Consequences:

The full consequences of Ethiopian chaos won’t be discussed in the scope of this article, but they can be assumed to have the risk of virally spreading through parts of the North and East African regions (since Ethiopia is of the latter but capable of influencing the former through its border with the rebellious Blue Nile state of Sudan), and would at the very least impact the country’s 95 million or so citizens to an undetermined extent (to say nothing of the transnational social implications). Also, with China’s economy becoming more dependent for growth on trade with Africa, any significant disruption in Ethiopia, Beijing’s prized partner nowadays, could directly ripple back to the East Asian giant and negatively affect it to a degree, all depending of course on the preexisting level of Chinese-Ethiopian trade. The higher that Ethiopia rises in terms of international significance (be it diplomatic, economic, military, etc.), the harder its fall could be and the further the aftershocks would travel across the globe, thus suggesting that the (US-advised) Qatari destabilization of Ethiopia could be timed to achieve maximum effect depending on its relationship to various actors (in this case, likely China) at the given moment.

Identity Cleavages:

The greatest and most imminent threat to Ethiopia lays in the sphere of ethno-separatism, the sentiment of which has continued to boil even after the Cold War-era civil war was brought to a close. Part of the reason for this is that Eritrea’s independence set a dangerous precedent for the militant representatives of the country’s disaffected ethnic groups, which it seems include just about every single one of them in some capacity or another (even the dominant Oromo and Amhara pluralities). The reason for this is that Ethiopia is a hyper-eclectic country with a wide array of identities within its federal structure, and in such a situation, it’s always difficult for any governing authority (let alone what some rebel groups allege is the present Tigrean-dominated one) to strike the perfect balance between each of them and leave everyone satisfied. This preexisting state of divisive affairs was utterly exacerbated by the Ethiopian Civil War that broke out against The Derg, where ethnic-affiliated rebel groups banded together in order to overthrow the central governing authority. The militant comradery that developed within each identity community as a result heightened the self-awareness that each of them felt about their differences and thus made a post-war federal structure the only realistic means of keeping the country together, especially after Eritrea’s successful secession in 1993.

The identity divide was so entrenched in Ethiopia after the civil war that the new federal units were formed around ethnic affiliation. Here’s a map of them as taken from Wikipedia:

The GCC Is Expanding To Eritrea, And It’s Not Good For Ethiopia

The CIA World Factbook lists the ethnic proportions as being “Oromo 34.4%, Amhara (Amara) 27%, Somali (Somalie) 6.2%, Tigray (Tigrinya) 6.1%”, followed by a multitude of others that compose minimal percentages. Altogether, these four groups form a little less than three-quarters of Ethiopia’s population, mostly concentrated in a north-south belt stretching between Tigray, Amhara, western Oromia, and northeast Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region.

Adding another crucial demographic layer to Ethiopia is the percentage of Christians (Ethiopian Orthodox and Protestant) and Muslims in the country, which is 62% to 33.9%, respectively, or almost 2:1. The following map demonstrates the geographic divide over religion and shows how this has a distinct overlap with certain federal units:

The Afar and Somalis are a very small minority of the population and by themselves cannot account for the 33.9% of Muslim adherents in Ethiopia, and as the above map indicates, many believers in this religion live intertwined with Christians in Oromia, the most populous region. By itself and with the absence of context, this isn’t anything particularly relevant to Ethiopia’s stability, but recalling how Qatar and its Saudi ally have been front and center in provoking a clash of civilizations through their support of Islamic terrorism, this demographic factor becomes perhaps one of the most important of all. Al Shabaab in Somalia is pretty much one of Qatar’s proxy creations, just as ISIL is, and its proximity and ethnic overlap with the Somali Region is a definite cause for concern.

Unconventional War:

The Basics

Taken together, a Qatari-orchestrated jihadist-separatist war emanating from the Somali Region could prove to be the catalyst that sets off a whole conflagration of nationwide conflict. This initial Unconventional War has a very real risk of occurring due to the doubly second-class status that Somalis feel they are afforded due to both their ethnicity and Muslim faith. Al Shabaab’s terrorist war in neighboring Somalia actually began as an Islamic-tinted national liberation movement in response to Ethiopia’s 2006 occupation, but it rapidly descended into the jihadist nightmare that lay at the core of its proponents’ true vision. Although it showed its true colors and most undoubtedly scared away many possible supporters that would have otherwise flocked to it for its originally marketed national liberation agenda, it still commands some indigenous support inside Somalia, thus raising the risk that it could also do the same amongst the Somali community in Ethiopia that might still consider itself occupied (or be led to think in such terms).

Carving Out The Caliphate

The concept here is that Qatar would use jihadism to radicalize separatist Somalis in getting them to become diehard supporters of the cause, holding out the carrot of a Greater Somalia if they’re successful. This irredentist dream would neatly overlap with Qatar’s own of creating a proxy caliphate in the Horn of Africa, but it also places limits on the primary geographic area of focus for its terrorist campaign. However, with the nature of terrorism inherently being that it knows no borders, it’s of course possible that attacks could take place in the densely populated and centrally positioned Oromia Region, which could have the effect of sharpening the Christian-Muslim divide in the area and prompting copy-cat and reprisal attacks. The destructive chain reaction that this might set off could only realistically be put to rest by a heavy-handed military response, albeit one which may scare investors right out of the country and lead to Western condemnation. In and of itself, whether or not the jihadist-separatist war succeeds in its stated goals, it would still accomplish what might have been the indirect (perhaps even actual) objective all along of weakening Ethiopia and possibly even China’s position in the continent depending on the degree of closeness and importance that Addis Ababa occupies for Beijing by that time (which is expected to be ever increasing).

Eritrea’s Strategy

Regardless of whether or not Qatar ever goes forward with the previously described scenario, that won’t in any way prevent Eritrea from continuing with its own, as it bases its national security on keeping the Ethiopian military distracted and divided through its support of ‘stand-alone’ and unified rebel movements so that it can’t ever solidly converge against the country. Eritrea would like to one day liberate the city of Badme that Ethiopia has refused to cede to its control after the Algiers Agreement ended their bloody and stalemated 1998-2000 war and a Hague border commission ruled that it’s Eritrean territory, and it might be using its support of various rebel groups as a means of pressuring Addis Ababa into acceding to its international legal obligation.

Eritrea’s Tactics

Asmara’s aspirations are to assist neighboring Tigray Region fighters in their quest for independence, mirroring Eritrea’s own, in order to create a buffer state that would insulate it from any future aggression from the rump Ethiopian state. At the same time, however, Eritrea also has ties with rebel groups operating deeper in the country, and if significant battlefield coordination can ever be maintained between Eritrea and the Oromo separatists (the ethnic group of which is the most populous and geographically central in the country), then it would go a very long way towards giving Asmara a lever with which it can trigger serious damage to Ethiopia’s national unity. Some Oromo might be attracted to the nationalist rhetoric coming from their militant-separatist counterparts that allege that the group is being exploited to support the minor peripheral ethnicities, and any visible “Tigrean-dominated government” crackdown on their civilian representatives might add credence to this belief. Eritrea might even ‘get lucky’ if the current tribal violence in South Sudan motivates a spillover effect into the neighboring Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People’s Region (home to 45 different ethnic groups) or Gambela Region that ‘naturally’ creates the state-fragmenting process that it and Qatar and looking to achieve for their own respective ends.

Doha’s Double-Crossing

On a final note, concerning any strategic Eritrean-Qatari collaboration in a future destabilization campaign against Ethiopia, the potential exists for Doha to stab its ‘ally’ in the back if its jihadist campaign is ‘too successful’. Eritrea might ironically be even more susceptible than Ethiopia is to an Islamic terrorist campaign because it has a similar proportion of Muslims that are also living in a similar economically challenging environment, and thus, might be ripe for ideological-religious manipulation under the ‘proper circumstances’. Additionally, the Muslim Afar living in the east partially represent Eritrea’s version of Ethiopia’s ethno-religious identity overlap that the latter has with the Somali Muslims, thus potentially leading to the same type of strategic vulnerabilities in this scenario. This factor could also be used by Qatar to manipulate Eritrea and keep its leadership in check, just in case the improbable happens and for whatever reason it decides to turn its back on its new patron.

On the flip side of things, so long as Asmara remains a loyal client of the Emir (which doesn’t seem set to change since it desperately needs the money and diplomatic support), it shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Eritrea is also much smaller than Ethiopia in both demographic and geographic terms, so it’s a lot easier for the state to exercise supervisory control over what’s going on and nip the jihadist process right in the bud before it fully blooms. However, as chaotic processes always prove themselves to be time after time again, once the genie is let out of the bottle, it’s impossible to stuff it back in, and even if Qatar doesn’t plan for it to happen, the jihad it unleashes in Ethiopia could also infect Eritrea in no time.

Concluding Thoughts

While it may not seem like it at first, the GCC’s military-logistical move into Eritrea is predicated just as much on influencing Ethiopia as it is about dominating Yemen. The Saudis and Emiratis may have just recently incorporated Eritrea into their coalition framework, but Qatar has been cultivating close ties with Asmara for the past 5 years as part of its “mediation” role in resolving the Djibouti border dispute, which incidentally saw it deploy 200 troops to the country. This means that the Muslim Brotherhood-espousing state is in a position to project its ideology throughout the region and intensify cooperation with its Al Shabaab proxy in nearby Somalia. The Saudis and Emiratis may initially be adverse to Qatar ‘rocking the boat’ in the region until after they’ve already tapped all of its economic benefit (which could take decades), but given Doha’s emotional- and ideological-driven foreign policy, it might do just that because it senses a ‘good opportunity’ here or there for furthering its self-interested geopolitical project.

In such circumstances, the GCC wouldn’t be able to indefinitely hold out the threat of Islamic-inspired terrorist destabilization as a means of blackmailing the world’s fastest-growing economy and one of Africa’s up-and-coming powers, but would have to reluctantly join in the Qatari-initiated unrest so as to secure whatever benefits they can while there’s still the ‘opportunity’ to do so. The ethnic, social, and religious cleavages already prevalent (and even overlapping in some cases) in Ethiopia provide more than enough domestic ‘gunpowder’ for a strategically placed spark to set the whole powder keg aflame, with the only fail-safe solution being for Addis Ababa to overwhelmingly respond with military force. Such a reaction might predictably scare away the investors that are needed to keep the ‘Ethiopian miracle’ alive, and the combination of capital outflow plus military suppression (no matter how justified it may seem) might further exacerbate the domestic differences in the country and place them in a perpetual process of worsening, up to the point of the country approaching the geopolitical abyss of dissolution along preexisting ethnic-federative lines.

Any disruption of Ethiopia’s stability could also be used as an indirect means of attacking Chinese interests in Africa, since Beijing has invested billions in helping the country rise and is expected to become increasingly dependent on its African economic partnerships in order to sustain its own growth at home. Large-scale unrest in Ethiopia could thus offset China’s plans for cooperating with the country on a high-level strategic basis, and it would thus lose not only a crucial marketplace for its goods or an attractive investment destination, but also its place in influencing the African Union right at its headquartered source in Addis Ababa. Therefore, many layers of intrigue blanket the possibility that Qatar may lead the GCC into a proxy confrontation with Ethiopia, be it out of its own regard or acting on behalf of American ‘advice’, which could see the Gulf using the country of Eritrea alongside Al Shabaab jihadists to dislodge China from its most important foothold in Africa.

Survation polled 1,546 adults over the age of 18 in GB & NI online on behalf of Leave.EU on November 16th – 17th. Standard margin of error 2.5%. Full data tables are available here.

Do the Public Back Intervention in the Wake of the Attacks in Paris?

• A majority of the public (56%) believe that military strikes against Syria by governments around the world have made the UK less safe. Less than one in five people (18%) believe that such military intervention has made the UK more safe.

• When asked which option the public believe would be the best way to combat the threat posed by IS, only 15% believe that the UK, like France should independently launch airstrikes on IS targets immediately, only slightly higher than those (13%) who say the UK should stay away fro the situation completely. A majority (52%) would support a more measured, multilateral response, military or otherwise, backed by a UN resolution.

• More than half (55%) of the public (57% of CON voters and 63% of LAB voters) think that the UK’s response to the Paris attacks should need to be put before Parliament so MPs can debate and vote on the best course of action.

Is membership of the EU Considered Important To the UK’s Safety And Security?

• Last week, David Cameron said that the question of leaving the EU was “not just a matter of jobs and trade, but of the safety and security of our nation.” The poll asked the public which of the following statements was closest to their opinion, with 59% saying that EU membership made the UK either less safe or made no difference.

Last week, David Cameron said that the question of leaving the EU is “not just a matter of jobs and trade, but of the safety and security of our nation.”

Which of the following statements is closest to your opinion?

The UK is safer and more secure by being a member of the European Union – 28%

The UK is less safe and secure by being a member of the European Union – 29%

The UK’s membership of the EU makes no difference to our safety or security – 30%

Don’t know – 13%

Returning to Renegotiation:

• In Survation’s last poll, conducted as David Cameron set out his demands for renegotiation, the public did not consider his renegotiation proposals popular in comparison to other alternative proposals – such as restricting the automatic right of EU citizens to live and work in the UK.
• This new polling asked the public whether Cameron not renegotiating this automatic right would make them more or less likely to vote to leave the EU, finding that nearly a third (30%) said that they would be more likely to vote to leave if the Prime Minister does not renegotiate this.

At present, David Cameron has NOT demanded renegotiation of the automatic right of EU citizens to live and work in the UK as part of the UK’s renegotiation package before the upcoming referendum. This automatic right allows EU citizens to live and work without restriction across the borders of the 28 nation states of the EU.

If David Cameron did NOT renegotiate this automatic right, would this make you…?

More likely to vote to leave the European Union – 30%

Less likely to leave the European Union – 8%

Would make no difference to my vote – 47%

Don’t know – 14%

Australian Points Based Immigration?

• An Australian-style points system is one proposed method which the UK could use to limit the number of people from the EU to live and work. This particular system has strong support among the public, with more than three-quarters (76%) saying that the UK should, rather than should not, use it to restrict the free movement of labour from other EU countries.

Which of the following statements is closest to your opinion?

The UK should limit the number of people coming to the UK from the European Union to live and work without restriction by introducing an Australian points based immigration system – 76%

The UK should NOT limit the number of people coming to the UK from the European Union to live and work without restriction by introducing an Australian points based immigration system – 15%

Don’t know – 8%

EU Referendum & Westminster Voting Intention

• The poll also included Survation’s latest EU Referendum Voting Intention. Our latest poll finds ‘Remain’ back with a narrow lead, but with one in five voters (18%) still undecided, both camps clearly have the potential to pull away from the other.

• In Westminster voting intention, the Conservatives continue to have a lead over Labour, this latest polling giving them seven percentage points over Labour. The Lib Dem’s fortunes are yet to improve since the General Election, whilst UKIP continue to maintain support since May.

CON – 37% LAB – 30% UKIP – 16% LD – 6% SNP – 5% GRE – 3% Other – 3%

Survation polled 1,546 adults over the age of 18 in GB & NI online on behalf of Leave.EU

Fieldwork November 16th – 17th. Standard margin of error 2.5%. Full data tables are available here.
To find out more about Survation’s services, and how you can conduct a telephone or online poll for your research needs, please visit our services page.

The terrorist attacks carried out in the heart of the French capital, either coincidentally or intentionally, have served as the perfect point of leverage for the West on the very eve of the so-called “Vienna talks” regarding Syria.

With its serendipitously strengthened hand and with France taking a more prominent role, the West is attempting to reassert not only its narrative, but its agenda regarding the ongoing conflict in Syria, an agenda that has – as of late – been derailed by Russia’s military intervention and recent gains made on the battlefield by Syrian military forces. The London Guardian stated in its article “Paris attacks galvanise international efforts to end Syria war” that:

The Isis attacks in Paris have galvanised international efforts to end the war in Syria, with a new deadline set for negotiations between the warring parties and for a country-wide ceasefire. 

There is still no sign of agreement, however, on the key question of the future of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

It should seem extraordinary to the global public that even after the attacks in Paris, the West still insists on undermining the Syrian government toward its goal of “regime change,” which includes continued material support to armed militants – all of which are extremists, and many of which have either coordinated with, or fought under the banner of Al Qaeda and even the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS).

This is also considering the fact that the Syrian government is now currently engaged in battle with ISIS in and around Aleppo, and is currently threatening to sever its supply lines leading out of NATO-member Turkey’s territory.

Regarding this point, the Guardian would even report:

It was clear, however, that Russia and the US have again had to agree to disagree about Assad. The Paris attacks “show that it doesn’t matter if you’re for Assad or against him,” said the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. “Isis is your enemy.”

However, to explain the West’s apparent failure to prioritize, the Guardian claims:

Isis, in their [the West’s] view, is a symptom of political failings in both Iraq and Syria. The Vienna participants are to meet in Paris before the end of the year to review progress toward a ceasefire and the selection of delegations for the Syrian talks. 

In reality, ISIS is not a “symptom of political failings.” It is the result of concerted, immense, multinational state-sponsorship. Entire armies of the immense scale ISIS operates on do not rise out of “political failings,” they rise from huge, preexisting financial networks, region-wide logistical support, multinational political support, intelligence networking, and experienced military planning and organizational skills.

The West and its regional allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, clearly constitute this immense multinational state-sponsorship ISIS has so far enjoyed. A look at any map depicting the Syrian conflict shows ISIS supply lines running directly out of NATO-member Turkey’s territory and in numerous reports, even out of the West’s most prominent papers, it is even admitted that ISIS is supplied in Syria, via Turkey.

It is clear then that “political failings” are not the “cause” of ISIS except only in the sense that the “failure” to exact regime change in Syria has prompted the West to continue propping up ISIS and other terrorist groups until the government in Damascus falls – and only when Damascus’ regional and global allies abandon it.

The West Got What it Wanted in Libya – And Created ISIS in the Process 

The West’s claims during the Vienna talks that if only they get their way in Syria, the threat of ISIS will subside, is betrayed by the events surrounding the very rise of ISIS in Syria in the first place.

Just before the conflict reached critical mass in Syria during 2011, the US, UK, France, other NATO members, as well as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), were already in the process of fully dividing and destroying Libya in pursuit of regime change.

They insisted that regime change was the only way to end the bitter fighting that had swept the country – regime change that just so happened to fulfill the long-held desire by Washington and Europe to see Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi ousted from power.

Through arming what the West called “rebels,” and through direct military intervention which included large-scale, nationwide airstrikes, naval bombardments, and even special forces, NATO devastated the country and turned it over literally to Al Qaeda. The West’s “rebels” turned out to be sectarian extremists all along, and in fact – with NATO’s help – they promptly took their weapons, fighters, and cash to begin the invasion of northern Syria via Turkey later that year.

The Business Insider would report in its article, “REPORT: The US Is Openly Sending Heavy Weapons From Libya To Syrian Rebels,” that:

The administration has said that the previously hidden CIA operation in Benghazi involved finding, repurchasing and destroying heavy weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, but in October we reported evidence indicating that U.S. agents — particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens — were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels. 

There have been several possible SA-7 spottings in Syria dating as far back as early summer 2012, and there are indications that at least some of Gaddafi’s 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles were shipped before now. 

On Sept. 6 a Libyan ship carrying 400 tons of weapons for Syrian rebels docked in southern Turkey. The ship’s captain was “a Libyan from Benghazi” who worked for the new Libyan government. The man who organized that shipment, Tripoli Military Council head Abdelhakim Belhadj, worked directly with Stevens during the Libyan revolution.

Belhadj, it should be mentioned, was the commander of US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) – which is literally Al Qaeda in Libya – and was so before, during, and after the 2011 Libyan war. Belhadj was also reportedly aligned with ISIS as it officially established itself in the shattered North African state. Fox News would report in its article, “Herridge: ISIS Has Turned Libya Into New Support Base, Safe Haven,” that:

[Catherine] Herridge reported that one of the alleged leaders of ISIS in North Africa is Libyan Abdelhakim Belhadj, who was seen by the U.S. as a willing partner in the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. 

“Now, it’s alleged he is firmly aligned with ISIS and supports the training camps in eastern Libya,” Herridge said.

It is clear that despite Western claims that regime change in Libya would be the beginning of the end for Libya’s violence and instability, it was only the end of the beginning – and not only for chaos in Libya – but for other nations across North Africa and in Syria itself.

Using Another 9/11 to Justify Creating Another Libya

NATO’s intervention and regime change in Libya did not avert a refugee crisis, it helped create one. NATO’s intervention and successful regime change in Libya did not make the region or the world safer, it turned the entire nation into a breeding ground for terrorist organizations with so-far unprecedented reach and operational capacity. NATO’s goals in Libya did not prevent the refugee crisis, it helped start it. And with all of this in mind, having seen this and taken full stock of Libya’s outcome, the West has nonetheless moved forward with precisely the same agenda in Syria.

In all reality, the West has no intention of bringing peace or stability to Syria. Their goal is to leave Syria as divided and destroyed as Libya, and to use the chaos and instability fostered there as a springboard for other targets of the West’s proxy warfare – most likely Iran, Russia, and targets deeper in Central Asia.

The West promises that it will end the chaos in Syria, just like they promised it would end in Libya. It will not end in either.

With Libya’s fate in mind, and a repeat performance clearly taking shape in Syria should the West get its way, it must be made clear that no matter how many innocent people are killed by terrorists the West itself helped create and perpetuate, they will not get an opportunity to turn Syria into the “Libya of the Levant,” no matter how convenient and well-timed these killings are, no matter how deep they are within the heart of Europe or North America, and no matter how tragic and regrettable the aftermath is.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

French President Francois Hollande says “France is at war“, and Syria is “the biggest factory of terrorists the world has known.”

Some of us might contest that second statement, as Libya, a nation that France itself destroyed, definitely held that crown for a considerable length of time.

In response to the attacks in France, the President has also now extended the current state of emergency for three more months, so instead of getting back to normality Hollande seems determined to prolong the crisis.

Here is exactly what can happen under a ‘state of emergency’ in France.

Watch a video of this report here:

Free Movement of People

• Establishment of curfews to prohibit people or vehicles from roaming specific places at times fixed by decree.
• Establishment of “secure / protected zones”, where the stay of persons is regulated.
• Prohibition of “any person seeking to hinder, in any manner whatsoever, the actions of the government”.

House Arrest

• The Minister of the Interior may put under house arrest or restrain to a given city anyone “whose actions may be seen as harmful to public safety and order”.

Closure of Public Places

• The Minister of the Interior or the prefects may “order the temporary closure of theaters, pubs and meeting places” and “meetings of nature to cause or maintain disorder”

Weapon Confiscation

• The Minister of the Interior may “order the return of first-, fourth- and fifth-class weapons”, which are handguns, shotguns and hunting rifles.

Searches and The Press

• The Minister of the Interior can order homes to be searched “day or night”.
• The Minister of the Interior may “take all measures to ensure control of the press and radio”.
• The searches can be done without the supervision of a judge.

Military Jurisdiction

• Military jurisdiction, via an accompanying decree, may “assign to themselves crimes and offenses related to them”.

Punishments for Refusing to Comply

• Imprisonment of up to two months.
• A €3750 ($4000) fine.

Therefore, the government essentially becomes judge, jury and executioner in one fell swoop. The Hollande regime, which is certainly an appropriate description under these circumstances, is now effectively in control of the French press, can rule by decree, cannot have any of its actions opposed by anyone, and has the authority to place any naysayer in jail.

If that isn’t the definition of a police state, we don’t know what is!

Moreover, if you were thinking about visiting France in the next three months – don’t bother!

How predictable is the globalist imperial agenda?

Are we witnessing the final stages of a long-term plan to induce another economic recession and erect a new high-tech police state throughout Europe and beyond?  All they needed was a pretext.

While the mainstream media performed its normal routine of emotive reporting, stoking general fear and spreading mass hysteria, some smaller independent media outlets were busy plotting the establishment’s latest crisis agenda.

When the Paris Attack news broke last week, 21WIRE’s Patrick Henningsen went on television late Friday evening to comment on the unfolding drama, and also to analyze what was was likely to happen in the coming days and weeks in the wake of this event.

As it turns out, his quick predictions were incredibly accurate…

1. Declaration of a State of Emergency

France declared its first nationwide state of emergency since 1961 (when it attempted a coup d’état during the Algerian colonial war). Initially, this week’s snap passage of the emergency powers law only provides for a 12 day period, but on Monday French ministers confirmed this would be extended to 3 months because they believed that French citizens “had a right to a safe Christmas.” It gets even worse. After closing French borders, President François Hollande then proceeded to accelerate new police state measures after declaring publicly that, “We are a nation at war”, and then called for suspending normal due process by canceling search warrants, imposing curfews, traffic bans, and even authorizing local governments to impose a ban on public demonstrations. It seems the President has traded in his nation’s liberty for security theatre. In addition, over 100,000 police and soldiers have been deployed throughout the country. France is now under Martial Law.

2. Airstrikes by Monday

In predictable knee-jerk fashion, the French government seized upon this opportunity in order to insert more of its their military assets into the Syria conflict by launching airstrikes on Sunday night in the area surrounding Raqqa, Syria, allegedly striking a multitude of “ISIS targets”, including command centers, weapons depots, and ISIS ‘Oil Assets’ – all thanks to supposed intelligence provided by the US. However, reports suggest that the impressive display of French air power didn’t actually net any real ISIS casualties.

One can only wonder how so many ‘high value targets’, especially ISIS oil assets (we’re told this is so crucial to ISIS funding), could suddenly be made available to the French by a US military that claims to have been conducting round-the-clock airstrikes over this same region… for the last 14 months. This only reinforces many people’s suspicions that the US-led Coalition “Anti-ISIS(ISIL) Campaign” has been nothing more window dressing for a covert agenda, where the US and its allies have actually been working in concert with both ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria in order to achieve a long-held policy of toppling the Syria’s government, ala regime change in Damascus.

3. NATO’s Article 5. The EU ‘Mutual Defense’ Clause

To date, Washington’s multi-lateral proxy, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), has not been able to legally wiggle its way into Syria to help the thousands of foreign fighters and terrorists (like NATO did in Libya in 2010-2011) who have been allowed to flood into that country since 2011. Currently, the US and its allies are engaged in a illegal, undeclared war in Syria, and the US are desperate to find some legitimate avenue to pursue their military ambitions after having failed to cheat their way into Syria via a staged false flag ‘chemical weapons’ event in Aug 2013. According to NATO article 5, an attack on one member state is deemed an ‘attack on all’, and thus automatically triggers a joint military action (war) by the NATO collective against their declared enemy. Already, a number of political figures have cried out for ‘Article 5’ war powers, including former NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen who claimed that, “I do believe that the attacks on Paris qualify for an invocation of Article 5.” He added, “It was an attack on an ally and we know who the attacker is.” (certainly, they know the attacker much more than they are letting on). Eager to see a wider military deployment from Washington, US Senator Marco Rubio has called for ‘an Article 5’ too. Absent of any official NATO route, however, France has simply gone ahead and invoked an obscure ‘Mutual Defense’ pact hidden within the EU charter. The clause is called Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union which states that, “If a member state is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other member states shall have toward it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.” Job done. Bombs away.

4. Calls for No Fly Zone

As 21WIRE first reported last year, the ‘No Fly Zone’ meme has been coming out of every available orifice in Washington since 2013, and this popular US tool for military intervention still draws the affectionate gaze of Democratic Party war hawks like Hillary Clinton, as well as the endless column of Republican war hawks who are in the pocket of the military industrial lobby. Whether its Jeb Bush, John McCain, or Lindsey Graham, they never get tired of the No Fly Zone.

5. US Republicans pushing for ‘boots on the ground’

Just like the No Fly Zone, ‘Conservative’ Republican war hawks have been desperate to implement another old chestnut – by throw thousands of young US men and women at a problem which the US has actually created. War hawks in Washington DC have predictably seized on the Paris Attacks as an opportunity to reignite calls for “boots on the ground” in Syria. Amazingly, they are now claiming that massive deployment of troops “worked really well” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

6. Call for closing freedom of movement across European borders

Early Saturday morning, Hollande’s first move was to ‘seal’ France’s borders, supposedly to catch the terrorists. This ’emergency’ move also comes at the height of Europe’s co-called ‘Migrant Crisis’ (a crisis that’s actually been engineered by the US and Europe). Rather conveniently, one of Friday the 13th’s said ‘suicide bombers’ was allegedly carrying a fake Syrian passport, which somehow led the French government and the western media to conclude that the Paris Attacks were a result of the ‘Migrant Crisis’, claiming the terrorists has sneaked into the country as refugees. To date, this only an official conspiracy theory, but that hasn’t stopped politicians and ‘security experts’ from using this crack-pot theory as justification for a European lock-down, prompting some European leaders to call for an end to freedom of movement across Europe.

7. Debate on Govt Spying and Privacy Rights, now off the table

As expected, politicians looking to appear ‘tough on terror’ and the growing gaggle of security lobbyists, and other assorted corporate fascists, have called for something akin to a ‘European Patriot Act’ – an end to the ‘Post-Snowden’ debate over bulk data collection and privacy – covering issues like NSA and GCHQ blanket spying on all citizens, and imposing more regulations and government monitoring of mandatory manufacturer ‘back doors’ for computers, mobile phones, gaming consoles, and also calls to make encryption illegal (except for government of course).

8. Calls for mandatory ID’s, biometric IDs

This hasn’t hit the headlines yet, but you can be sure that the usual gang of security contractors are putting the final touches on their proposals from a new regime of biometric ‘real IDs’. Expect announcements before the week’s end.

The last one is wasn’t very difficult to predict, but it has now been proven accurate nonetheless…

9. Cameron using Paris to Push for Syria War Vote
Back in August 2013, British MPs rejected Cameron’s call for bombing Syrian government forces in a close vote. It turns out that MP’s made the right choice as that war would have been waged on false pretenses. As predicted on Friday last week, David Cameron has now promised a new “comprehensive strategy” to win MP’s Parliamentary votes for an open-ended UK bombing campaign ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Cameron claims he wants to, “do the right thing for our country” (fancy that), and hit the “head of the snake” of ISIS in Raqqa, Syria. What military impact the UK would make in a multi-nation war in the region is debatable, with an air force of about a dozen Typhoon fighters and a handful of operational naval vehicles. Make no mistake about it – the British defense industry would like nothing more than to see this happen tomorrow – along with increased defense spending and procurement. Job done. Bombs away.

We’d rather none of these had come true, especially this quickly, but it only goes to show just how transparent the new world order agenda really has become.

Watch 21WIRE’s Patrick Henningsen and his original analysis from Friday evening, Nov. 13, 2015 on RT International…

Just like with the London 7/7 Bombings which coincided perfectly with the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, last week’s Paris Attacks were timed with the G20 Summit in Istanbul – elevating the ‘War on Terror’ (now rebranded to the ‘War on ISIS’) to the top of the west’s international and military agenda. Once again, job done. Now France is locked down in a state of emergency, effectively under Martial Law.

Immediately after the Paris Attacks on Friday Nov. 13th, French authorities and mainstream media wasted no time in expediting the crucial talking point that a Syrian passport was found either on, or near, the body of one of the alleged suicide bombers outside the Stade de France sporting arena in Paris.

This begged the obvious question: why would supposed suicide bombers all pack their passports with them on a one-way jihad?

‘SATIRICAL’ CARTOON: Like American Express says, “Don’t leave home without it!” (Image: Zero Hedge)

Public suspicion immediate went viral on social media, as people pointed out how this anomaly directly mirrored similar false flag stunts on 9/11 in 2001, with MH17 in 2014, and with Charlie Hebdo last January.

This seemed to force the mainstream media to pivot, as they ‘walked back’ the Syrian passport leg of their story and take rear guard action before the public copped on to what was likely a planted set-piece at the scene of the crime. At this point, the mainstream choir suddenly U-turned and claimed in unison, that the Syrian passport was indeed a ‘fake’ – but even then, the mainstream media still stood by the assertion that the alleged suicide bomber had sneaked into Europe from Syria undercover the west’s cleverly engineered ‘Migrant Crisis’ in Europe.

If the passport(s) is indeed fake, then how could police be certain that the passport’s carrier was the same as the passport’s legitimate owner? How can they be sure the ‘fake’ passports were not planted at the scene, or did not belong to someone else, a bystander for example? Could the crime scene have been tampered with before or after the event? Interesting questions, and ones which have already netted a number of creative and improbable theories by authorities and their media operatives. Most importantly, the lack of real evidence in this case pretty much destroys the fabricated talking point which fuses together this ‘ISIS terrorist’ event together with the ‘Migrant Crisis’.

If we are to truly believe authorities again, then maybe we are underestimating the true value of these indestructible travel documents. We could be missing out on one of mankind’s greatest, most strongest ever material designs.

Listen to SUNDAY WIRE host Patrick Henningsen as he doles out his passport rant this past weekend…

With Russia annihilating terrorist vermin all across Syria from the air and the SAA personally mopping up the remainders in village after village, it appears the West has shifted from utter panic to an attempt to launch a Hail Mary and save its jihadist pets as well as the plan to overthrow the secular government of Bashar al-Assad.

This Hail Mary appears to be coming in the form of an attempt to secure the “Safe Zone” area discussed and agreed upon by the Turks and the United States in the past under the guise of fighting ISIS and protecting “moderate rebels” and civilians. In reality, however, the “Safe Zone” is nothing but a trafficking corridor for ISIS and other related terrorist organizations supported by NATO, financed by the GCC, and funneled through Turkey into Syria.

It is for this reason that the U.S. and Turkey have announced an agreement to “shut off Turkey’s border with Syria as part of a joint military operation.” In an interview with CNN, U.S. Secretary of State and Skull and Bones member John Kerry stated, “The entire border of northern Syria – 75 percent of it has now been shut off. And we are entering an operation with the Turks to shut off the other remaining 98 kilometers.”

Kerry did not elaborate as to what form the operation would take or when it would take place. He also neglected to mention whether or not U.S. troops would be deployed in order to take part in the operation.

Turkish officials have hinted at the possibility of some type of imminent military operation occurring, with Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu stating that a “new military operation against Daesh” may take place “in a matter of days.” Deputy Minister Numan Kurtulmus, however, stated that no ground operation was planned.

Of course, the dimensions of the territory in the crosshairs of this “joint military operation” between Turkey and the United States are immensely important.

The Kurds have seized and now maintain control of an area that spans the Turkey-Syria border from its western to eastern extremities all except for one small pocket in the middle – from Jarablus in the East to Dabiq in the West. Others have described the zone in slightly different dimensions as being from Jarablus in the East to Afrin in the East. Regardless, this corridor, also known as a “safe zone,” is about the exact dimensions of the ISIS supply lines coming in from Turkey to Syria and, if either the Syrian military or the Kurds were able to capture this small section of land on the border, ISIS supply lines would be entirely cut from the North. With Assad’s forces tightening their grip in the South and Southwestern portions of the country and the SAA/Hezbollah forces cracking down on any ISIS movements on the Syria-Lebanon border, and most notably the Russian bombing campaign aiding the Syrian military in retaking full control of Aleppo and other parts of northern Syria, ISIS would essentially be cut off from most avenues of outside assistance.

It is thus important to note that the Syrian military had nearly reached the Euphrates river when the terror attacks in Paris took place.

It is for this reason – the threat the Kurds pose to ISIS – that Turkey has engaged in such a heavy bombing campaign against the Kurds, alongside an alleged campaign against ISIS, the latter campaign being one that is questionable to say the least. Remember, the American airstrikesagainst ISIS have largely targeted Syrian infrastructure and civilian areas. In those areas where ISIS has been struck, it has been nothing more than an exercise in death squad herding.

The “ISIL-Free Zone” should be renamed the “ISIL Free Range Zone” since it is nothing more than a hedge of protection set up over the terrorists with the United States and Turkey once again acting as the ISIS Air Force. This zone, now under the protection of NATO forces will then be used as aForward Operating Base for terrorism deeper inside the country as Turkey unilaterally bombs the Kurds away from territory they currently hold.

Earlier this month, the Kurds launched an assault on that corridor, threatening to close the last supply route for ISIS that exists in the north. Indeed, not only one of the last, it is the main lifeline for the terrorist organization supported by the West.

On November 7, Webster Tarpley and the Tax Wall Street party wrote in their Daily Briefing that “Resistance to this urgently needed policy will inevitably come from Erdogan of Turkey.” Tarpley and the TWSP cited a report by Aaron Stein of War on the Rocks, which stated,

Turkey has made one thing very clear: It will not tolerate a YPG presence west of the Euphrates,and will therefore not accept a Kurdish-led offensive on the ISIS-held city of Jarablus, or any YPG-led effort to unite its territory with the Kurdish-controlled enclave in Efrin in northwestern Syria. In the days before the election, the Turkish military fired upon YPG forces trying to cross the Euphrates, ostensibly to shore up their front line with the Islamic State.

Turkey has long feared the creation of a Kurdistan in Northern Syria, particularly because the creation of such an entity would not only inflame the tensions between the Turkish Kurds and the Turkish government but would essentially carve out a good portion of Turkish territory. With the establishment of a Kurdistan virtually anywhere in the region but especially on the Turkish border or in Turkey itself, Erdogan’s foolish dreams of being the new Ottoman emperor will fade away.

For that reason, the Turks are in no way going to assist in the sealing of Turkey’s border with Syria by the Kurds. Considering the reports coming from media outlets friendly to the Turkish government and the propaganda being spouted by Erdogan’s stooges in the Turkish ruling party, it is the Kurds who are considered the great enemy of Turkish “civilization” (meaning Erdogan’s delusions of grandeur) and not ISIS.

With the growing awareness of the importance of the Jarablus corridor amongst researchers, observers, and the interested national parties, the recent Turkish/U.S. joint military operation agreement stands as a last ditch effort to solidify the ISIS/NATO presence in Syria. By engaging troops and military hardware over the “safe zone” of the Jarablus corridor, NATO will be able to ensure that ISIS supplies and soldiers continue to pour into Syria unabated. By placing NATO interests in the midst of the corridor and declaring the zone a “safe zone” the hope is that the Russians will see the zone as off limits.

At that point, the real question becomes just how long the Russians and the SAA can avoid their own attacks on the Jarablus corridor before they realize that the inability to do so is merely prolonging the war and is ultimately a losing strategy. Once that realization is made, the question will become whether or not the Russians and the SAA will attack the zone despite the NATO presence.

The answer to that question is one that is deeply important to us all.

Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties.

The Daily Mail team are not known for their journalist ethics and measured response to crisis, but today’s attack on refugees is a low point, even for them.

Stanley McMurty, who goes by the pen name ‘Mac’, has produced a chillingly racist cartoon for the Mail – which depicts refugees as marauding soldiers, running into Europe alongside rats. The implication being, they are one and the same.

The shadowy, caricatured features, the suggestion of vermin-like character – this all seems very reminiscent of the sort of  propaganda we have seen from some of the worst regimes in history. As one Twitter user pointed out.

One is a Nazi cartoon laughing at Jews denied entry to democratic countries. The other is the Daily Mail today. pic.twitter.com/wYHwmfc0l1

— Iain (@Cuphook108) November 17, 2015

While we’re at it, how did the Daily Mail treat Jewish refugees of the Nazi holocaust at the time? In 1938, as the Jewish  population of Germany began fleeing Hitler, this was the welcome they received from the Daily Mail.

Not only did the Daily Mail propagandize against the incoming Jewish families, but they spent years cheerleading for fascism in general, and Hitler in particular. In 1934, the paper’s owner Viscount Rothermere wrote an editorial personally inviting Britons to embrace both.

The Daily Mail was wrong in 1934, wrong in 1938, and it is wrong today. One would have hoped that in the near century between the mistakes of the 1930’s, and today, the owners, editors and writers at the Daily Mail would have evolved. But sadly, they haven’t. Worse, neither have their readers.

It’s the same story at The Sun, where Katie Hopkins invoked the same Nazi-era references, with this piece.

Hate crimes against the Muslim population are rising astronomically, not solely because of terror attacks by radical fundamentalists, but because people like McMurty and Hopkins have issued a blood libel against all Muslims, and against all refugees. Thanks to the constant stream of misinformation, people are literally convinced that Muslims are taking over Britain. In fact, more than 200,000 people have signed a petition calling on Britain’s borders to be closed to defend from this ‘invasion.’

The reality is that far from being held to account, cartoonist McMurty has actually been honored with an MBE from the Queen, for “services to the newspaper industry.”

Over 4.1 million refugees have fled the violence in Syria. Think about how traumatised France is after the attacks on Paris – now imagine such attacks were happening every day, for several years. Then you can begin to imagine the level of trauma amongst the refugees that are lining the shores of Europe. The refugees are fleeing the very people that just brought Paris such grief. Not only has that darkness followed them here, but cynical and bigoted people are actually blaming them for it.

There needs to be a zero tolerance policy towards behaviour which endangers human life, and those who seek to radicalise the population against a community on religious or racial grounds. If that’s true for ‘mad mullahs’, it should be true for media magnates and their journalists.

Britain, we are better than this. Let’s prove it by putting our compassion and our dignity on loudspeaker, rather than our fear and prejudice.

A partir da crise econômica de 2008, os bancos de investimentos de Wall Street passaram a ser os principais beneficiados pelas políticas aplicadas pelo sistema da Reserva Federal e do Departamento do Tesouro dos Estados Unidos. Não obstante, instituições como o J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, entre outras, sofreram quedas significativas em seus níveis de lucro durante o terceiro trimestre deste ano. Apesar do enorme apoio governamental, foi impossível para os gigantes financeiros norte-americanos registrar números altos e positivos de forma estável, já que se encontram encravados numa economia que ainda está longe de alcançar a recuperação absoluta.

Sob o capitalismo, nada dura para sempre. As crises econômicas se sucedem uma após a outra. As contradições do sistema não são nunca resolvidas, somente transferidas de um setor a outro, de um país a outro. Se trata, portanto, de uma «crise circular», segundo definição do marxista britânico David Harvey. O Estado desempenha um papel crucial, mas ao mesmo tempo ajuda a gerar as condições para a acumulação capitalista. Quando a crise estoura, só a intervenção do Estado pode aliviar os danos sofridos pelas empresas e pelos bancos.

Publicamente, os empresários preferem advogar pela liberdade absoluta do mercado, mas a verdade é que quando estão em problemas, quando estão a ponto de quebrar, são os primeiros a pedir ajuda aos seus respectivos governos.

É o que se observa nos Estados Unidos, a principal potência capitalista do planeta. Ao longo dos Anos 90, as inovações financeiras serviram para gerar a ilusão de que as crises econômicas já não seriam tão dramáticas como antes. Colapsos de um tamanho similar ao da Grande Depressão de 1929 pareciam superados.

Segundo a perspectiva dos investidores, a intervenção governamental deve estar limitada, caso contrário podem gerar distorções nos preços dos títulos financeiros. Contudo, essa percepção mudou depois da quebra do Lehman Brothers, já que se algo evitou que os demais bancos tivessem o mesmo destino foi precisamente a agressiva intervenção estatal.

Desde então, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, entre outros, são como afilhados do governo de Estados Unidos. Como esquecer que em pleno desastre financeiro global, em setembro de 2008, Henry Paulson, que nesse momento era responsável pelo Departamento do Tesouro, exigiu que os congressistas do seu país aprovassem imediatamente um pacote de resgate de 700 bilhões de dólares.

No começo, os parlamentares estadunidenses resistiram, mas finalmente, com algumas pequenas alterações, o projeto foi aprovado. Assim, centenas de bilhões de dólares dos contribuintes foram destinados à aquisição de ativos hipotecários que não valiam nada (o chamado subprime) para salvar os bancos da insolvência.

Em dezembro daquele mesmo ano, Ben Bernanke, então presidente do sistema da Reserva Federal (Fed, por sua sigla em inglês), diminuiu a taxa de juros dos fundos federais (‘federal funds rate’) a um nível próximo de zero, e meses depois iniciou um programa de estímulos monetários, também conhecido pelo nome de «Quantitative Easing».

Entretanto, o mercado de trabalho continua estancado, e os investimentos massivos não aparecem. A dívida pública disparou: enquanto que, em 2006 era de 10,6 bilhões de dólares, agora está por cima dos 18 bilhões de dólares. A dívida das famílias, embora tenha diminuído um pouco, ainda se encontra longe dos níveis registrados antes de 2005. Isso porque os bancos utilizam seus capitais mais para investir na bolsa de valores de Nova York e menos para outorgar crédito às atividades produtivas.

Agora, a prosperidade bancária se esgota. Os lucros dos grandes bancos de investimentos estão em queda livre, segundo o revelado por informes corporativos do terceiro trimestre deste ano. A exceção do Wells Fargo e do Bank of America, o grosso dos bancos estadunidenses registrou números decepcionantes. Diante das incertezas globais, os agentes do mercado se desfizeram dos seus investimentos nos mercados cambiais, de bonos e de matérias-primas (‘commodities’).

Antes de agosto de 2015, quando o índice Dow Jones – que aglutina as maiores empresas industriais dos Estados Unidos – caiu mil pontos, os mercados financeiros pareciam calmos. Como o produto interno bruto (PIB) da economia estadunidense crescia por cima das expectativas, e as políticas de austeridade foram impostas na Grécia meses antes, os agentes de investimentos estavam tranquilos.

Pelo contrário, as últimas semanas deixaram em evidência que essa tranquilidade é muito frágil. Uma das principais preocupações mundiais é a China. Apesar do gigante asiático conservar níveis de acumulação de capital superiores aos que se observam nos países industrializados, a desaceleração de sua manufatura vem golpeando severamente os países emergentes, em especial os exportadores de matérias-primas (‘commodities’).

Nos Estados Unidos, o panorama continua sendo obscuro. O crescimento do PIB no período entre julho e setembro é deprimente, uma expansão de apenas 1.5 % em termos anuais. O mesmo acontece com as cifras do mercado de trabalho.

Nada permite concluir que a recuperação do nível de emprego será sólida, e muito menos que o processo será de crescimento estável. O que pode-se observar como evidência é que o nível de rentabilidade geral se mantém baixo demais, por isso os bancos estadunidenses tiveram seus lucros diminuídos.

É impossível especular nos mercados de renda variável (ações, imóveis, matérias-primas, etc) e obter altos rendimentos eternamente. Os bancos de investimentos dos Estados Unidos se encontram num impasse, já que foram muito beneficiados pelas políticas econômicas dos anos recentes, e agora essa abundância parece que se acaba.

Perante essa situação não há dúvidas de que pressionarão com todas as suas forças para continuar recebendo recursos extraordinários e tratamento especial por parte do governo dos Estados Unidos. Buscarão sabotar qualquer reforma financeira que pretenda por fim à sua exuberância. Por essa razão, a possibilidade de mudar o estado das coisas dependerá, em última instância, da capacidade de resistência dos de baixo.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

Fonte: Contralínea (México).

Tradução: Victor Farinelli (Carta Maior).

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez: Economista da Universidade Nacional Autônoma do México.

A partir de la crisis económica de 2008 los bancos de inversión de Wall Street han sido los principales beneficiarios de las políticas aplicadas por el Sistema de la Reserva Federal y el Departamento del Tesoro de Estados Unidos. No obstante, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, entre otros, sufrieron caídas significativas en sus niveles de ganancias durante el tercer trimestre del año en curso. A pesar del enorme apoyo gubernamental, para los gigantes de la banca norteamericana resultó imposible registrar altos dividendos de manera ininterrumpida toda vez que se encuentran enclavados en una economía que todavía está muy lejos de alcanzar la recuperación absoluta.

Bajo el capitalismo nada dura por siempre. Las crisis económicas acontecen una y otra vez. Las contradicciones del sistema no se resuelven, sólo se trasladan de un sector a otro, de un país a otro; se trata, pues, de una «crisis circular», según las palabras del marxista británico David Harvey. El Estado desempeña un papel clave, pues a la vez que contribuye a generar las condiciones para la acumulación capitalista, cuando estalla la crisis su intervención permite aliviar los daños de las empresas y los bancos.

Si bien públicamente los empresarios por lo general abogan por la libertad absoluta del mercado, la verdad es que cuando están en problemas, cuando están a punto de quebrar, son los primeros en pedir ayuda a sus respectivos gobiernos.

Así se observa en Estados Unidos, la principal potencia capitalista del planeta. A lo largo de la década de 1990, las innovaciones financieras sirvieron para generar la ilusión de que las crisis económicas ya no serían tan dramáticas como antes. Colapsos de un tamaño similar a la Gran Depresión de 1929 parecían superados.

Bajo la perspectiva de los inversionistas bursátiles, la intervención gubernamental debe ser muy limitada, de lo contrario se pueden generar distorsiones en los precios de los títulos financieros. Sin embargo, esa percepción cambió después de la bancarrota de Lehman Brothers, ya que si por algo los demás bancos de inversión de Wall Street no se desplomaron se debió precisamente a la agresiva intervención estatal.

Desde entonces, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, entre otros, son los consentidos del gobierno de Estados Unidos. Cómo olvidar que en pleno desastre financiero global, a finales de septiembre de 2008, Henry Paulson, quien en ese momento estaba a cargo del Departamento del Tesoro, exigió a los congresistas de su país la aprobación inmediata de un paquete de rescate por un monto de 700 000 millones de dólares.

En un principio los parlamentarios estadounidenses se resistieron, pero finalmente, con algunos ligeros cambios, el proyecto se aprobó. Es así como cientos de miles de millones de dólares de los contribuyentes estadounidenses se destinaron a la adquisición de activos hipotecarios basura (‘subprime’) para salvar a los bancos de la insolvencia.

Luego, ya en diciembre de ese mismo año, Ben Bernanke, entonces presidente del Sistema de la Reserva Federal (Fed, por su acrónimo en inglés), disminuyó la tasa de interés de los fondos federales (‘federal funds rate’) a un nivel cercano a cero, y meses después puso en marcha un programa de estímulos monetarios, también conocido con el nombre de «Quantitative Easing».

Sin embargo, el mercado laboral sigue estancado, las inversiones empresariales masivas no aparecen por ningún lado. La deuda pública se disparó: mientras que en 2006 era de 10.6 billones de dólares, ahora está por encima de los 18 billones de dólares. La deuda de las familias aunque ha disminuido un poco, todavía se encuentra lejos de los niveles registrados antes de 2005. Es que los bancos utilizan sus capitales más para invertir en la bolsa de valores de Nueva York y menos para otorgar crédito a las actividades productivas.

Ahora la prosperidad bancaria se agota. Las ganancias de los grandes bancos de inversión van cuesta abajo, así se revela en sus reportes corporativos del tercer trimestre del año en curso. A excepción de Wells Fargo y Bank of America, el grueso de los bancos estadounidenses padeció la caída de sus dividendos. Es que ante la incertidumbre global, los agentes bursátiles se desprendieron de sus inversiones en los mercados cambiarios, de bonos y de materias primas (‘commodities’).

Antes de agosto de 2015, cuando el índice Dow Jones –que aglutina a las mayores empresas industriales de Estados Unidos– cayó en 1 000 puntos, los mercados financieros parecían en calma. Como el producto interno bruto (PIB) de la economía estadounidense crecía por encima de las expectativas, y las políticas de austeridad se impusieron en Grecia meses atrás, los agentes de inversión estaban en paz.

Por el contario, las últimas semanas han puesto en evidencia que esa tranquilidad es muy quebradiza. Una de las principales preocupaciones mundiales es China. Si bien el gigante asiático conserva niveles de acumulación de capital superiores a los que se observan en los países industrializados, la desaceleración de su manufactura viene golpeando severamente a los países emergentes, en especial a los exportadores de materias primas (‘commodities’).

En Estados Unidos el panorama continúa siendo muy gris. El dato de crecimiento del PIB para el periodo comprendido entre julio y septiembre es deprimente, una expansión de apenas 1.5 % en términos anuales. Lo mismo sucede con las cifras del mercado laboral. Nada permite concluir que la recuperación del nivel de empleo sea sólida y, mucho menos, sostenida. Lo que sí es evidente es que el nivel de rentabilidad general se mantiene demasiado bajo, por eso los bancos estadounidenses han visto disminuidas sus ganancias.

Es imposible especular en los mercados de renta variable (acciones, bienes raíces, materias primas, etcétera) y obtener altos ingresos de por vida. Los bancos de inversión de Estados Unidos se encuentran en un impasse, ya que si bien resultaron muy beneficiados por las políticas económicas de los años recientes, su abundancia parece acabarse.

Ante esa situación no hay duda de que van a presionar con todas sus fuerzas para seguir recibiendo recursos extraordinarios y tratos especiales de parte del gobierno de Estados Unidos. Buscarán sabotear cualquier reforma financiera que pretenda poner un alto a su exuberancia. Por esa razón es que cambiar el estado de cosas dependerá, en última instancia, de la capacidad de resistencia de los de abajo.

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

Fuente: Contralínea (México).

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez : Economista egresado de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has arguably been the most utilized tool of imperial war since the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Ironically, the sole purpose of NATO’s creation in 1949 was to “contain” revolutionary socialism wherever it emerged. The world was a very different place in 1949. The Soviet Union had developed into an industrialized, socialist state with links to independence struggles all over the world. 1949 was also the year of the Chinese Revolution. These developments pulled nearly a third of the world’s population out from imperialism’s orbit.

NATO was initially imperialism’s counterweight to impede the growth of socialism around the world. After the Soviet Union fell, NATO evolved into an instrument of imperialist expansion. NATO pooled together the military resources of member nations around the interests of its most powerful members, especially those of the US.

NATO has played a critical role in every US war since 1991. The alliance helped dismember Yugoslavia in 1999 and invade Afghanistan in 2001. In 2011, NATO was called on to give cover and aid to jihadists in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and the independent government of Libya. Libya’s social system, which provided free healthcare, education, and full rights to women for all Libyans, was effectively destroyed.

The NATO-backed destabilization of Libya provided the blueprint for the current proxy war in Syria. NATO countries have been deeply involved at all levels of the proxy invasion of the secular Syrian state since 2011. NATO’s provision of high tech weaponry, logistical support, and safe zones to jihadists has been the primary obstacle to the Syrian people’s desire for a peaceful end to the war. Millions of people have died and been displaced largely because of NATO’s refusal to withdraw from the proxy war.

US imperialism’s overall agenda is to isolate and ultimately destabilize Iran, Russia and China. These states represent the emergence of a new world order guided by the principles of international law and sovereignty. Their mode of development threatens US dominance around the world. The parasitic rulers of the imperial system have calculated that a march to war with Russia and China is a necessary precondition to US dominance. The US capitalist economy has declined and rendered it unable to compete with Russia and China without the use of military means.

The contradiction between US dominance and struggle for national sovereignty is evident in Russia’s intervention in Syria. The Russian Federation has largely set back NATO efforts, led by the US, to destabilize the government of Bashar Al-Assad. Russian support for the Syrian state in the form of air cover and military aid has ISIS, Al-Nusra front, and other terrorist forces on the defensive. In complete accordance with international law, Russia has helped preserve the right of the Syrian people to choose what kind of government leads the nation.

US imperialism has responded with a dangerous message of imminent war to Russia. The message has been largely disseminated through NATO. In the week of November 6th, NATO concluded its largest operations to date in Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The Trident Juncture operations consisted of 6,000 troops, 230 military units, 140 fighter aircraft, and more than 60 warships from 28 participating countries. The Pentagon additionally sent F-15c jets to Turkey to allegedly to bolster the Western coalition’s efforts against ISIS in Syria. F-15c jets are meant for use in air combat. ISIS does not possess an air force.

But Russia does have an air force and it is deeply engaged in airstrikes in ISIS-held Syrian territories. The US military apparatus has made clear in actions and in words that Russia is the primary target of its operations. NATO Supreme Commander Phillip Breedlove, in a recent Department of Defense briefing, explained that Russia’s “build up” in Syria and “aggression” in Crimea made NATO escalation in Europe a necessary measure to protect Western “security” interests.

NATO’s Trident Juncture operations also included exercises with African Union troops across the continent. He justified NATO collaboration with AFRICOM as a safeguard for nations such as Libya from potential Russian incursion. The thought of NATO “protecting” Libya is an absurdity. NATO left Libya destroyed and under the rule of competing terrorist fractions. What NATO’s collaboration with AFRICOM actually shows is that the US-NATO alliance is in deep preparations for war with Russia on all possible fronts.

NATO expansion into the Middle East, Africa, and Europe has greatly increased the possibility of an armed confrontation between the US and Russia.  China is also a large part of this equation, especially in Africa and the Asia Pacific region. The prospect of a World War III scenario grows each day US imperialism exists on earth. US military aggression, spearheaded by NATO, must be seen as the development of a seek-and-destroy policy of any and all forces that stand in its way. Russia and China are two of the biggest forces standing in the way of imperialism’s goal of full spectrum dominance.

The only force that can prevent the continuation and expansion of the US warfare state is the force of the people. The force of the people must be consolidated into a mass movement based on the material interests of all oppressed people in common opposition to imperialism. Such a movement needs to condemn police brutality, racism, and exploitation just as staunchly as it condemns the brutality of the US warfare state on Syrians, Russians, Iranians, and the like. This requires an understanding of the root causes of police brutality, war, and poverty. Only an organized people can push forward a broad, public conversation with the masses around the question of imperialism.

Danny Haiphong is a candidate for Workers World Party and member of Fight Imperialism Stand Together in Boston. He is also a regular contributor to Black Agenda Report. Danny can be reached at [email protected] and FIST can be reached at [email protected].

The Pentagon announced on Monday that the U.S. has approved a $1.29 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, despite mounting evidence of the country’s mass atrocities and possible war crimes in neighboring Yemen.

The U.S. State Department on Friday approved the sale of over 10,000 bombs, munitions, and weapons parts produced by Boeing and Raytheon. This includes 5,200 Paveway II “laser guided” and 12,000 “general purpose” bombs. “Bunker Busters,” also included in the deal, are designed to destroy concrete structures.

“The proposed sale augments Saudi Arabia’s capability to meet current and future threats from potential adversaries during combat operations,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense, said in an announcement of the deal released Monday.

But Raed Jarrar, government relations manager for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), told Common Dreams: “Sending additional weapons to the Middle East will not stabilize the region or put an end to violence and extremism. Supporting proxy wars, interventions, and military occupations will only add fuel to the fire.”

“It’s also illegal under US and international law to transfer weapons to human rights abusers, or to forces that will likely use it to commit gross violations of human rights,” Jarrar continued. “There is documented evidence that such abuses have been committed by almost all of U.S. allies in the region.”

The U.S. statement indicates that the deal will, in part, be used to replenish arms for Saudi Arabia’s seven-month-long military assault on Yemen, which has killed at least 2,355 civilians and wounded 4,862, according to United Nations statistics.

With the backing of the U.S. and U.K., the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for the vast majority of these killings. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in September that “almost two-thirds of reported civilian deaths had allegedly been caused by coalition airstrikes, which were also responsible for almost two-thirds of damaged or destroyed civilian public buildings.”

The approval came just a month after the U.S. approved an $11.25 billion sale of combat ships to Saudi Arabia, defying the international call for an arms embargo over war crimes concerns. What’s more, it continues a long-standing trend in which the U.S. is a major weapons supplier to the gulf state. The IHS Jane’s 360 report, released in March, found that Saudi Arabia was the primary “defense” trading partner with the United States in 2014.

In announcing this latest weapons deal, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said: “Providing these defense articles supports Saudi Arabian defense missions and promotes stability in the region… and enables Saudi Arabia to safeguard the world’s largest oil reserves.”

But experts warn that such sales, in fact, are driving instability and atrocities across the Middle East—far beyond Yemen.

In a statement released on Monday, Paul Shannon of the AFSC called on “the U.S., France and the west to cut off its support and vast weapons supplies to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies whose royal families have been responsible for the spread of the jihadist extremist ideology throughout the region.”

The arms deal will proceed unless Congress moves to block it in the next 30 days.

Flags fly at half-mast in NATO countries for “France’s 9/11,” while President Obama announces to the media: “We will provide you accurate information about who is responsible.” They needn’t wait. It is already clear. The umpteenth massacre of innocents was caused by the series of geopolitical cluster bombs, detonated according to a precise strategy.

It has been put into play since the U.S. won the confrontation with the Soviet Union and appointed itself “the only state with truly global strength, reach and influence in every dimension — political, economic and military” proposing to “deter those powers that might seek regional dominance – Western Europe, East Asia, the former Soviet Union and Southwest Asia – whose resources would be sufficient to generate global power.”

To this end the U.S. has refocused its strategy since 1991 and, in agreement with the European powers, that of NATO. Since then they have disintegrated or demolished by war (open and covert), one after another, the states considered an obstacle to the plan of global domination; these include Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and others – while still others (including Iran) are being targeted.

These wars, which have claimed millions of victims, have disrupted whole societies, creating a huge mass of desperate people, whose frustration and rebellion lead on the one hand to a real resistance, but on the other hand are being exploited by the CIA and other intelligence services (including French ones) to ensnare fighters in a “jihad,” which in fact suits the strategy of U.S./NATO. This led to the formation of a shadow army, made up of (often competing) Islamic groups used to undermine the Libyan state from within while NATO attacked it, and then for a similar operation in Syria and Iraq.

From all this ISIS was born, in which “foreign fighters” came together with agents of the secret services, and which has received billions of dollars and modern weapons from Saudi Arabia and other Arab monarchies, allied with the U.S. and particularly with France.

This strategy is nothing new: some 35 years ago, to bring down the Soviet Union in the “Afghan trap,” tens of thousands of mujahadin were recruited by the CIA from over 40 countries. Among them was the rich Saudi citizen named Osama bin Laden, who arrived in Afghanistan with 4,000 men, the same person who after he founded Al Qaeda turned into “enemy number one” of the United States.

Washington is no sorcerer’s apprentice, unable to control the forces it set in motion. It is the driving force of a strategy that destroys entire states, causing a chaotic chain reaction of division and conflict to be used according to the old method of “divide and rule.”

The terrorist attack in Paris, performed by an unskilled laborer convinced to strike a blow against the hated West, occurred with perfect timing just as Russia, intervening militarily, had blocked the U.S./ NATO plan to destroy the Syrian state and announced military countermeasures to the growing expansion of NATO to the East.

The terrorist attack, by creating a climate of siege in Europe, “justifies” an accelerated military buildup of the NATO European countries, which includes increasing their defense spending as requested by the U.S., and opens the way for other wars under U.S. command. France, which so far “had been bombing inside Syria only sparingly” against Isis, as the New York Times writes, “bombed the Syrian city of Raqqa on Sunday night [Nov. 15], its most aggressive strike against the Islamic State group” hitting targets described by the United States. Among these, U.S. officials specify, are “some clinics and a museum.”

Translation : John Catalinotto

Three questions about Paris:

1) Was the over-the-top, no-holds-barred, 24-7 media blitz really an attempt to keep the public informed about a critically important event or was the coverage geared to pressure President Obama into sending ground troops to Syria?

2) Is Obama’s excuse for not putting boots on the ground in Syria to fight ISIS credible (Obama says he believes the current strategy is “ultimately going to work”.) or is the administration afraid of a confrontation with Russia?

3) Does the media’s coverage of the attacks in Paris  (Similar attacks which took place in Beirut, Baghdad and Turkey were treated as mere footnotes) reflect pervasive racist attitudes in the West or is it another example of our dreary agenda-driven media?

While there’s no question that the victims of this horrific crime deserve all of our sympathy and support, there’s also no question that the media has exploited the attacks to serve their own purposes. From the moment the attacks were first announced on Friday until today, the media has conducted a full-blown, round-the-clock propaganda campaign that reenacted every bomb blast, every screeching siren, and every lurid detail in order to generate as much fear in the public mind as possible. The objective in fueling this mass hysteria became apparent to me after watching all five political talk shows on Sunday where the consensus view of all the interviewees was: “ISIS is evil. Obama needs to do something. Obama needs to send troops to Syria.”

For example: Jeb Bush says to George Stephanopoulos,  “We need to show leadership…We need no-fly zones…We need ground troops.”

Not to be outdone, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said, ‘We need 50,000 troops to take Raqqa.’  Shortly after, Fareed Zakaria of GPS chimed in with this (completely phony) heartfelt appeal for US intervention. He said:

“Imagine if the world responded… by joining forces and doing exactly what’s necessary to eradicate a Caliphate that only leaves carnage in its wake? …. maybe, just maybe, this Democratic President can mobilize the world to respond accordingly. Maybe it will be enough to simply neuter the culprits, not eviscerate the whole population of the region, causing intractable blowback.”

Can you believe it? He candidly admits that US intervention could “eviscerate the whole population of the region (and cause) intractable blowback”, but he wants to “go for it” anyway.

Unbelievable. Of course, none of the news programs allowed anyone opposed to US warmongering anywhere near a microphone. Can’t have that. The unwavering uniformity of opinion just shows that the media wants more war which is why they’re waving the bloody shirt of Paris to pressure Obama. They don’t care about the victims, what matters to them is their agenda.

But the strategy isn’t working, not this time at least. In fact, Obama is actually digging in his heels. On Monday, in a truly extraordinary press conference following the G-20 Summit,  Obama  announced that he wasn’t going to send  ground troops to Syria after all. He said he thought “it would be a mistake.”

You could have heard a pin drop after he made his statement. And then, of course, the press corps went into full attack-mode.

“Not send troops? How can you not send troops after all the terrorist hype we’ve been spewing for two days straight? We demand you send troops.”

The media’s indignation was apparent by the questions they leveled at Obama after his brief presentation. And what was amazing about the questions, was that, all  five questions were exactly the same question! I’m not making this up. The entire pathetic Q&A can be read here.

Take a look: First question, Jerome Cartillier of AFP:

Q. —  “Mr. President. One hundred and twenty-nine people were killed in Paris on Friday night. ISIL claimed responsibility for the massacre, sending the message that they could now target civilians all over the world. The equation has clearly changed. Isn’t it time for your strategy to change?”

Subtext to question: We want you to send ground troops.

Second question, Margaret Brennan, CBS News:

Q. —  “Mr. President. A more than year-long bombing campaign in Iraq and in Syria has failed to contain the ambition and the ability of ISIS to launch attacks in the West. Have you underestimated their abilities? And will you widen the rules of engagement for U.S. forces to take more aggressive action?”

Subtext to question: We want you to send ground troops.

Third question, Jim Avila, ABC News:

Q.–  “Mr. President. In the days and weeks before the Paris attacks, did you receive warning in your daily intelligence briefing that an attack was imminent? If not, does that not call into question the current assessment that there is no immediate, specific, credible threat to the United States today?”

Subtext to question: You have no idea what ISIS is doing, so why not send in ground troops.

Forth question, Jim Acosta, CNN:

Q. —  “Mr. President. … a lot of Americans have this frustration that they see that the United States has the greatest military in the world, it has the backing of nearly every other country in the world when it comes to taking on ISIS. I guess the question is — and if you’ll forgive the language — is why can’t we take out these bastards?”

Subtext to question: We want you to send ground troops.

Fifth question, Ron Allen, NBC News:

Q. — “Mr. President. I think a lot of people around the world and in America are concerned because given the strategy that you’re pursuing … ISIS’s capabilities seem to be expanding. Were you aware that they had the capability of pulling off the kind of attack that they did in Paris? Are you concerned? And do you think they have that same capability to strike in the United States?”

Subtext to question:  You should be doing more. We want you to send ground troops.

Are these really the questions a journalist would ask if he if he wanted to inform the public on a critical foreign policy matter or are they merely a way of hectoring the president so he does what the powerbrokers who own the media want him to do?

By the way, Obama snapped about halfway through the Q&A mainly because he just got frustrated with the tedious repetition of the same question.  By the time he got to Jim Acosta he blurted out angrily:  “I just spent the last three questions answering that very question, so I don’t know what more you want me to add.”

But don’t kid yourself, Obama knows what’s going on. He knows the bigwig media owners who sit on the same board of directors with the big weapons manufacturers, the Wall Street bankers and other honchos in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) want another war.  That’s what it’s all about. That’s why they have trained all their cameras on Paris to make sure that every wailing woman, every candle-lit vigil, and every bloody victim is filmed up-close-and-personal to maximize the emotional impact and  help generate momentum for another US-led massacre in the Middle East.

But Obama’s not going to go that route. He’s not going to expand the war. Not because he’s opposed to violence or squeamish about killing innocent people. Heck no, that has nothing to do with it. Here’s the reason he gave at the press conference:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, keep in mind what we have been doing. We have a military strategy that is putting enormous pressure on ISIL through airstrikes; that has put assistance and training on the ground with Iraqi forces; we’re now working with Syrian forces as well to squeeze ISIL, cut off their supply lines. We’ve been coordinating internationally to reduce their financing capabilities, the oil that they’re trying to ship outside. We are taking strikes against high-value targets — including, most recently, against the individual who was on the video executing civilians who had already been captured, as well as the head of ISIL in Libya….(So) Even as we grieve with our French friends,  we can’t lose sight that there has been progress being made.”

“Progress”?  A four and a half year stalemate followed by a Russian-led military campaign that has rolled back all the gains the “US-backed” jihadis made in their effort to topple Assad? Obama calls that progress?

Let’s be blunt: US policy in Syria has gone off a cliff. It’s a complete and utter disaster. Obama knows that. He’s just making lame excuses. Here’s more:

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  “…there have been a few who suggested that we should put large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground. And keep in mind that we have the finest military in the world and we have the finest military minds in the world, and I’ve been meeting with them intensively for years now, discussing these various options, and it is not just my view but the view of my closest military and civilian advisors that that would be a mistake — not because our military could not march into Mosul or Raqqa or Ramadi and temporarily clear out ISIL, but because we would see a repetition of what we’ve seen before, which is, if you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremes, that they resurface — unless we’re prepared to have a permanent occupation of these countries.

And let’s assume that we were to send 50,000 troops into Syria. What happens when there’s a terrorist attack generated from Yemen? Do we then send more troops into there? Or Libya, perhaps? Or if there’s a terrorist network that’s operating anywhere else — in North Africa, or in Southeast Asia?”

Okay, so now we’re getting closer to the truth. Obama and his top advisors have looked at this mess from all sides and figured out that it’s a hopeless cause, so they’re not going to send US troops to die for nothing. Good. At least, that makes sense.

But even THAT isn’t the whole truth. The whole truth is that Obama and crew are worried about Russia. Sure, the politicians do a lot chest thumping and saber rattling in their op-eds or when they’re bloviating in front of a TV camera. But this is the real deal. Syria is not make-believe. It’s a war, and it’s a war Russia intends to win. And if the US gets in Russia’s way, by setting up a safe zone within Syria’s sovereign borders or doing something else stupid like that, there’s going to be trouble.  Obama knows this because he’s a reasonable man; immoral, but reasonable. He’s not a hothead like John McCain or a foam-at-the-mouth basketcase like Hillary Clinton. Obama is cut in the mold of James Baker, a dyed-in-the-wool imperialist who understood the parameters of imperial power. There are limits to power and a wise man will acknowledge those limits and act accordingly. That’s what Obama is doing. He’s decided that the rewards are just not worth the risks, so he’s cutting his losses and backing down.  That doesn’t mean Washington’s plan for Syria has been abandoned, it just means that Obama wants to run out his time in office without dragging the country into another pointless bloodbath.

If you ask me, it’s the smartest move he’s made in eight years.

In the context of the enquiry about the Paris massacres, a Syrian passport was found next to one of the kamikaze bombers of Stade de France. After being pointed out as responsible for the attacks by President Hollande, ‘the Islamic State’ claimed that they had engineered the onslaught. The French executive, that had already stated that they wanted to take action in Syria allegedly against ISIS, but actually against Bachar El Assad, who ‘has to go’, sees in this a significant clue that comfort their military expedition.

Using doublespeak – supporting an organization while pointing at it as the enemy and calling terrorists people who were previously hailed as ‘freedom fighters’, is not some prerogative of the French government. Producing one’s own enemy has become a pivotal process in Western strategy, one that comforts an imperial structure in which there is no separation any more between inside and outside, between law and sheer violence, between citizens and enemies. In Belgium the muslim preacher Jean-Louis Denis is tried in court for having promoted the jihad in Syria among young people because he is suspected of being acquainted with Sharia4Belgium, a group that is labelled as terrorist. His lawyer exposed the equivocation in the prosecution when he reminds the court that kids were indeed sent to fight for the Islamic State in Syria but by the Belgian intelligence service. He was referring to the part played by an undercover agent of the Belgian federal police.

The signifier’s comeback

It seems that in Paris too a major concern for the terrorists was to make it easy for them to be identified. Yet this paradox is no longer really a surprise. The miraculous find of ID papers has now become a classic feature in such circumstances. It is a recurring event, a repetitive compulsion that points again and again at people who belong to some jihadist movement.

In the official version for 9/11 the FBI claimed that they found the unscathed passport of one of the pilots near one of the towers that were reduced to ashes by explosions whose heat melted even the steel columns in the buildings’ structure. The fourth plane’s crash near Shanksville also yielded a passport which, though scorched, still made it possible to read the person’s first name and surname and to see his ID photo. This is all the more disturbing as nothing at all was left in the crater, no part of the plane or of the people travelling in it, only this partly scorched passport.

Unlikelihood as measure of truth

In the case of the attack at Charlie Hebdo, investigators found the ID papers of the elder Kouachi brothers in a car they had abandoned in the north-east of Paris. This document allows them to conclude that the authors of the attack were known to the anti-terror department as ‘pioneers of the French Jihad.’ The ‘hunt’ could begin. How can killers who operate with such professional skill make such blunder? It is an elementary caution known to any burglar that you do not to take ID papers along.

Since 9/11 unlikelihood has become part of our lives. It has become the basis on which  truth is assessed. Reason is banished. We must not believe what is said but the speaking voice, whatever nonsense it may utter. The more patently absurd, the more unwavering our belief in what is stated must be. Unlikelihood has turned into the measure of truth.

The discourse developed around the Merah or the Nemmouche affairs testifies to it. While  besieged by dozens of policemen Merah is said to have left his flat to call a France 24 journalist from a public cabin so as not to be identified. He then allegedly returned to be conveniently killed by a sniper who is said to have shooted ‘in self-defence’ with ‘non lethal weapons’.

Nemmouche, the author of the killing in the Jewish museum in Brussels, is supposed not to have thrown his weapons away since he wanted to sell them. And he chose the most closely monitored international transport, the bus connecting Amsterdam, Brussels and Marseilles. A ‘random border control’ allegedly resulted in his being caught.

The sideration of “national unity”

In any case the derealizing nature of what is presented results in sideration. Like the Gorgon’s look it turns us into stones. It shows that something is wrong in discourse. It highlights a flaw that is not intended to deceive us but to break us into inconsistent parts. The report of how the attacks occurred is an exhibition enforced upon the audience. It exists outside of any representation and results in sideration, not so much because of the dramatic nature of events as because of the impossibility to decipher the real. The audience can only retrieve some measure of unity through a fuller unreflective adhesion to what is stated. A fusion occurs with the one who names. We have to give up any distance with what is said and shown.  “National unity”, the fusion between those who monitor and those who are monitored can then take place.

Indeed exposing flaws in the discourse of power on those various attacks results in a form of psychosis and the suppression of any defence mechanism, not only in front of some definite actions or statements, but towards any action and statement of power, for instance laws such as the law on intelligence that takes privacy out of the field of basic liberties.

An act of war against the people

Though it had been drafted for over a year the law on intelligence that was voted in June 2015 was presented as a response to the Charlie Hebdo attack. The law makes it legal to set up ‘black boxes’ with Internet access providers so as to capture users’ metadata in real time. It also allows for the setting of mikes, of locator transmitters, and of spy software and cameras. Those who are subjected to these investigation techniques are not agents of a foreign power, but French citizens. These are treated as though they were enemies of an executive power that decides on and monitors those secret devices. Under cover of fighting terror, this law makes existing measures legal, giving the executive a permanent, surreptitious and almost boundless facility to monitor citizens. Its total inefficiency when it comes to prevent attacks shows that what is targeted are French people not terrorists. As it changes the nature of intelligence services, from espionage to monitoring citizens, this law is an act of war against them. Evidence of its reality is provided by the recent slaughter in Paris.

The article in french :

Les attentats de Paris. «Passeport» : LE RETOUR, 15 of November of 2015

Translated by Christine Pagnoulle.

Jean-Claude Paye,  sociologist, author of several books in French and in English, among which L’Emprise de l’image. De Guantanamo à Tarnac. (Yves Michel 2012).

The Russian commercial jetliner brought down over the Sinai in late October was destroyed by a homemade-style, “foreign made” TNT bomb, according to results of a Russian government investigation announced on Monday.

The plane exploded over the Sinai desert after departing from Sharm el-Sheikh, a vacation destination on the Red Sea that is popular with Russian tourists. At 224 dead, the incident represents the most deadly terror attack against Russia since the seizure of a primary school in Beslan by an Islamist terrorist faction in 2004.

Russia’s FSB security agency announced the finding on Tuesday and offered a $50 million reward for information leading to the capture of the perpetrators.

“According to our experts, a homemade explosive device equivalent to 1 kilogram of TNT went off onboard, which caused the plane to break up in the air, which explains why the fuselage was scattered over such a large territory. I can certainly say that this was a terrorist act,”

said FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov.

The Russian government had initially rejected Western claims of a terror attack on Flight 9268 as premature. US and British officials made accusations of terrorism within days of the explosion.

Already last week, however, Russia moved to ban all Egyptian flights to Moscow and arranged for special flights for more than 70,000 Russian tourists stranded in Egypt, on which passengers were forbidden to check any luggage.

Russia is now seeking to harness the incident to justify an escalation of its military intervention in Syria. President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s military commanders to prepare options for new forms of Russian involvement in response to the announcement.

“We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them,” Putin said Tuesday.

Russian long range bombers took off from Russian soil to launch dozens of cruise missiles against suspected ISIS targets following the announcement, Russian military officers told Putin in a hearing Tuesday.

Russian ships stationed in the Mediterranean fired salvos of cruise missiles as part of a bombardment hitting more than 200 targets, according to defense minister Sergei Shoigu. The strikes came just weeks after Russia fired missiles from naval ships in the Caspian Sea.

“We are conducting a mass airstrike campaign against Islamic State targets in Syria. We have now doubled the number of sorties, which is allowing us to conduct operations throughout the length and breadth of the country,”

Shoigu said.

Russia will send some 40 additional military planes to Syria, Russian military officers aid.

The Russian strikes come amid major escalations of the US and French bombing campaigns against Syria. In a single raid on Monday, US planes destroyed 115 civilian fuel trucks allegedly running supplies for ISIS. French forces launched as many as 30 strikes against the city of Raqqa in northern Syria over the weekend.

On Tuesday, the US and Turkey launched military operations to seal off the Turkish-Syrian border, according to statements from US Secretary of State John Kerry.

The US is “looking to do more” in Iraq, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Tuesday. According to recent statements by Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu, Turkey may start ground operations against IS within days or weeks.

Russia is attempting to leverage the Paris attacks and the impact of its military escalation to make overtures to France. Russian officials said Tuesday that the two governments would cooperate in joint operations in Syria.

“This includes closer ties and joint operations between the military command and intelligence services of Russia and France in Syria,” a Russian government statement said.

Moscow ordered a Russian missile cruiser to patrol jointly with French ships in the eastern Mediterranean Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Putin has invited French President Francois Hollande to Moscow for discussions at the end of November.

US officials have also softened their rhetoric toward Russia, citing the stepped up strikes by Moscow against ISIS.

“At least in recent days there has been more of a focus on ISIL and we welcome that,” US military spokesman Peter Cook said.

While the Russian report bolsters a growing consensus that the Metrojet explosion was indeed the result of a bomb, Egyptian authorities have insisted that the evidence remains inconclusive. Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamal told media that there is not any solid evidence proving a terror attack as yet. The Egyptian government is very concerned over the damage caused by the attack to the credibility of the Egyptian security apparatus and to the country’s economically crucial tourism sector.

Egyptian authorities are holding at least 17 individuals in connection with the attack, including two employees of Sharm al-Sheikh airport who the government says may have helped attackers smuggle the bomb on board.

Last Friday’s terror attacks in Paris have triggered an international media campaign aimed at inspiring panic and justifying an escalation of the wars in the Middle East and the assault on democratic rights within the US and Europe.

The establishment media accepts uncritically all of the claims of government officials, as well as their cynical statements of sympathy for the victims and their self-serving denunciations of the killers as evil incarnate. It works to use the latest attack to legitimize the wars and repressive measures that produced it and previous terrorist atrocities, while setting the stage for wider wars and outright dictatorship.

The calls for more troops and bombs in Syria and even more pervasive government spying, harsher policies against immigrants and other undemocratic measures have nothing to do with protecting anybody. They are about implementing pre-existing plans to seize the oil resources of the Middle East and clamp down on restive populations within the imperialist countries.

CNN, for example, has been recycling a video clip of Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, declaring that she has premonitions of disaster like those she had just before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The Washington Post published an editorial Tuesday denouncing President Obama’s policy in Syria as insufficiently aggressive. It called for increasing the deployment of Special Forces troops beyond the level announced by Obama earlier this month, using drone missiles, and setting up so-called “safe zones” as staging grounds for an offensive to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The same edition of the Post featured a column by former Bush administration official James Jeffrey, headlined “No more half-measures,” demanding a full-scale conventional ground war in Syria.

Essentially the same line is promoted by so-called “liberal” commentators in the Post and the New York Times such as Richard Cohen and Roger Cohen.

At the same time, the networks, cable news channels and press outlets are promoting calls from intelligence and police officials to increase government spying powers by allowing the state to disable encryption systems. On Monday, CIA Director John Brennan suggested that ISIS could attack the US and called the Paris events a “wake-up call” that should put an end to “hand-wringing” over broader government surveillance powers.

The Washington Post on Tuesday cited an internal email sent last August by Robert Litt, the general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, arguing that legislation authorizing the disabling of encryption would have a good chance of being passed “in the event of a terrorist attack or criminal event where strong encryption can be shown to have hindered law enforcement.”

There have been nearly fifteen years of virtually uninterrupted wars against largely defenseless populations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. These wars were preceded by US imperialist interventions in Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia and Serbia, as well as US military and political support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and its aggressive wars against its Arab neighbors, together with US backing for bloody dictatorships in Egypt and the Persian Gulf.

These imperialist wars have killed millions, devastated entire countries and turned tens of millions of people into refugees. French President Hollande and his counterparts in the US, Britain, Germany, etc. declare the attacks in Paris to be “an act of war.” But what have they been doing, except waging merciless war on the people of these countries?

You cannot carry out such crimes without engendering an environment of hatred and the desire for revenge. These are the real roots of the terrorist attacks of the past fifteen years, beginning with 9/11.

But it is virtually impossible to find in the saturation media coverage of the Paris events any questioning of the legitimacy of the underlying policies of the imperialist governments. At the most, media commentators and politicians speak of atrocities such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a “mistake.” They never call the horrors inflicted by the United States and its allies by their right name—war crimes.

Their moral outrage is always selective. ISIS and other Islamist jihadist groups such as al-Nusra have been carrying out mass killings of civilians in Syria for years, but the US and European media have either hailed such actions or covered them up so long as they were directed against the Assad regime, which they have targeted for removal.

Every major terror attack in the West, beginning with 9/11, has had the character of a blowback event carried out by forces with whom the imperialist governments had collaborated. The perpetrators were known to the intelligence and police agencies and were in many cases being tracked and monitored.

Such is the case in Paris. ISIS itself is the product of the devastation caused by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and the “divide and rule” policy employed by Washington to incite sectarian warfare between Sunnis and Shiites. Islamist jihadist forces linked to Al Qaeda, including the precursors of ISIS and al-Nusra, were used as proxy ground forces in the US-NATO war for regime-change in Libya and have been employed in Syria. Al Qaeda itself emerged from the Islamist forces the US armed and mobilized in its proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

It is widely reported that the ISIS operative alleged to have masterminded the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, had been linked to a series of abortive terror attacks in Europe over the past two years and had been put on a kill list. Yet in an ISIS video, Abaaoud boasts of being able to move back and forth between Syria and Europe without interference.

Under conditions of blanket spying on the entire population of every imperialist country and most of the rest of the world, and admissions that at least some of the perpetrators were under surveillance, the media frenzy over the need for even more intrusive spying powers is absurd. But that does not prevent it from proceeding at full blast.

The Paris attacks and their aftermath follow what has by now become a standardized pattern. US-led wars lead to terror attacks in the imperialist countries by forces set in motion by the imperialists themselves. It turns out that the perpetrators were known to the state and in many cases were being tracked. Yet, somehow, the intelligence and police agencies had no foreknowledge.

The media swings into action to exploit popular shock and foment an atmosphere of insecurity and fear in order to justify further military aggression abroad and the abrogation of democratic rights at home.

This historical pattern is never raised, the better to impede any critical appraisal or political understanding of such events within the general population. Nevertheless, there is a vast chasm between the media image of popular support for war and anti-democratic measures and the real sentiments of the broad masses of people. They are aware that events such as the Paris killings are completely bound up with the wars in Central Asia and the Middle East—which they do not support.

The entire establishment media is complicit in war crimes abroad and a criminal attack on democratic rights at home. The lavishly paid pseudo-journalists and news anchors who transmit state propaganda in the guise of “news” should be held accountable by the international working class, along with their corporate paymasters.

Bandiere a mezz’asta nei paesi Nato per «l’11 Settembre della Francia», mentre il presidente Obama annunciata ai media: «Vi forniremo accurate informazioni su chi è responsabile». Non c’è bisogno di aspettare, è già chiaro. L’ennesima strage di innocenti è stata provocata dalla serie di bombe a frammentazione geopolitica, fatte esplodere secondo una precisa strategia. Quella attuata da quando gli Usa, vinto il confronto con l’Urss, si sono autonominati «il solo Stato con una forza, una portata e un’influenza in ogni dimensione — politica, economica e militare — realmente globali», proponendosi di «impedire che qualsiasi potenza ostile domini una regione – l’Europa occidentale, l’Asia orientale, il territorio dell’ex Unione sovietica e l’Asia sud-occidentale – le cui risorse sarebbero sufficienti a generare una potenza globale».

A tal fine gli Usa hanno riorientato dal 1991 la propria strategia e, accordandosi con le potenze europee, quella della Nato. Da allora sono stati frammentati o demoliti con la guerra (aperta e coperta), uno dopo l’altro, gli stati ritenuti di ostacolo al piano di dominio globale – Iraq, Jugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libia, Siria, Ucraina e altri – mentre altri ancora (tra cui l’Iran) sono nel mirino.

Queste guerre, che hanno mietuto milioni di vittime, hanno disgregato intere società, creando una enorme massa di disperati, la cui frustrazione e ribellione sfociano da un lato in reale resistenza, ma dall’altro vengono sfruttate dalla Cia e altri servizi segreti (compresi quelli francesi) per irretire combattenti in una «jihad» di fatto funzionale alla strategia Usa/Nato.

Si è così formata una armata ombra, costituita da gruppi islamici (spesso concorrenti) impiegati per minare dall’interno lo Stato libico mentre la Nato lo attaccava, quindi per una analoga operazione in Siria e Iraq.

Da questa è nato l’Isis, nel quale sono confluiti «foreign fighter» tra cui agenti di servizi segreti, che ha ricevuto miliardi di dollari e moderne armi dall’Arabia saudita e da altre monarchie arabe, alleate degli Usa e in particolare della Francia.

Strategia non nuova: oltre 35 anni fa, per far cadere l’Urss nella «trappola afghana», furono reclutati tramite la Cia decine di migliaia di mujaheddin da oltre 40 paesi. Tra questi il ricco saudita Osama bin Laden, giunto in Afghanistan con 4 mila uomini, lo stesso che dopo avrebbe fondato Al Qaeda divenendo «nemico numero uno» degli Usa.

Washington non è l’apprendista stregone incapace di controllare le forze messe in moto. È il centro motore di una strategia che, demolendo interi Stati, provoca una caotica reazione a catena di divisioni e conflitti da utilizzare secondo l’antico metodo del «divide et impera».

L’attacco terroristico di Parigi, eseguito da una manovalanza convinta di colpire l’odiato Occidente, è avvenuto con perfetto tempismo nel momento in cui la Russia, intervenendo militarmente, ha bloccato il piano Usa/Nato di demolire lo Stato siriano e ha annunciato contromisure militari alla crescente espansione della Nato ad Est. L’attacco terroristico, creando in Europa un clima da stato di assedio, «giustifica» un accelerato potenziamento militare dei paesi europei della Nato, compreso l’aumento della loro spesa militare richiesto dagli Usa, e apre la strada ad altre guerre sotto comando Usa.

La Francia che finora aveva condotto «contro l’Isis in Siria solo attacchi sporadici», scrive il New York Times, ha effettuato domenica notte «come rappresaglia, il più aggressivo attacco aereo contro la città siriana di Raqqa, colpendo obiettivi Isis indicati dagli Stati uniti». Tra questi, specificano funzionari Usa, «alcune cliniche e un museo».

Manlio Dinucci

Di fronte al programma di difesa missilistica della Nato a guida Usa, la Russia dispiegherà nuove armi da attacco capaci di forare lo «scudo»: lo ha annunciato ieri il presidente Putin, accusando Washington di voler neutralizzare il deterrente strategico russo per acquisire una «decisiva superiorità militare».

La decisione russa, presentata dai nostri media come inattesa e minacciosa, era stata a lungo preannunciata. Lo abbiamo ripetutamente scritto, da anni, sul manifesto. Lo riconosce anche il New York Times (10 novembre): «Per molti anni il Cremlino ha protestato contro lo scudo missilistico a guida Usa. Washington ha risposto che lo scudo aveva lo scopo di neutralizzare i missili iraniani. Putin obietta però che gli Usa hanno continuato a lavorare allo scudo anche dopo l’accordo che ha arrestato il programma nucleare iraniano».

Come si è arrivati a tale situazione? Il Congresso Usa ha stanziato oltre 200 miliardi di dollari (acconto su circa 1000 miliardi in dieci anni) per potenziare le forze nucleari con altri 12 sottomarini da attacco (7 miliardi l’uno, il primo già in cantiere), armato ciascuno di 200 testate nucleari, e altri bombardieri strategici (550 milioni l’uno), ciascuno armato di 20 testate nucleari. Contemporaneamente gli Usa hanno continuato a potenziare lo «scudo antimissili», che è uno strumento non di difesa ma di offesa: se riescono a sviluppare uno «scudo» affidabile, essi possono tenere la Russia e altri paesi sotto la minaccia di un first strike nucleare, fidando sulla capacità dello «scudo» di neutralizzare gli effetti della rappresaglia. Il nuovo piano varato dal presidente Obama prevede, rispetto al precedente, un numero maggiore di missili dislocati a ridosso del territorio russo.

Poiché sono gli Usa a controllarli, nessuno può sapere se sono intercettori o missili nucleari. Il 2 ottobre, alla vigilia della grande esercitazione Trident Juncture, la Nato ha annunciato l’arrivo nella base navale di Rota, in Spagna, del cacciatorpediniere lanciamissili Uss Carney, per «rafforzare la difesa missilistica Nato in Europa».

Oltre che da 24 missili SM-3 del sistema Aegis installati in Polonia e altrettanti in Romania, lo «scudo» missilistico comprende lo schieramento nel Mediterraneo di navi da guerra dotate di radar Aegis e missili SM-3. La Uss Carney è la quarta unità di questo tipo, dallo scorso febbraio, ad essere trasferita dagli Usa nel Mediterraneo, nel Mar Nero in Romania.

È probabile che il numero di queste navi nel Mediterraneo aumenterà, dato che la Us Navy ne ha già una trentina. La marina spagnola dispone già di quattro fregate dotate del sistema Aegis, che le rende interoperative con le navi Usa. Lo stesso si sta facendo con le fregate Fremm della marina militare italiana. Un ruolo di crescente importanza nello «scudo» viene svolto dai comandi e dalle basi Usa/Nato in Italia: a Napoli ci sono i quartieri generali delle forze navali statunitensi e alleate, in Sicilia la base aeronavale di Sigonella (che assiste le unità Aegis nel Mediterraneo) e il Muos di Niscemi per le comunicazioni satellitari ad alta frequenza. Tutte le unità navali Aegis nel Mediterrano, informa sempre la Nato, sono «sotto comando e controllo Usa». Ciò significa che la decisione di lanciare i missili intercettori, o presunti tali, è di esclusiva pertinenza del Pentagono. Per di più, stanno per arrivare in Italia le nuove bombe nucleari statunitensi B61-12, che sostituiscono le precedenti B61.

Come documenta lo scienziato nucleare Hans Kristensen, direttore del Nuclear Information Project alla Fas (Federazione degli scienziati americani), è in corso a tale scopo l’upgrade della base della U.S. Air Force ad Aviano (Pordenone) e di quella di Ghedi Torre (Brescia). Analoghi preparativi sono in corso nella base aerea tedesca di Buchel, dove si stanno ristrutturando le piste, dotandole di nuove strumentazioni. Washington continua a ripetere che gli Usa stanno costruendo lo «scudo» per difendere gli alleati Nato. In realtà l’Italia e gli altri paesi europei membri della Nato vengono usati dagli Stati uniti quale prima linea di un nuovo confronto nucleare, per certi versi più pericoloso di quello della guerra fredda.

Manlio Dinucci

Bombardear – declarou a ministra da Defesa, Pinotti, do Partido Democrático (PD) – “não deve ser um tabu”. Cai assim na Itália e na Europa o tabu da guerra e, com isso, também o do nazismo. Em Kíev, informa a agência Ansa em uma documentada reportagem de 4 de novembro, chegam toda semana do centro da Europa (incluindo a Itália) e dos Estados Unidos dezenas de “profissionais da guerra” recrutados sobretudo pelo Pravy Sektor (1) e pelo batalhão Azov, de clara característica nazista.

Os batalhões neonazistas fazem parte da Guarda Nacional, treinada por instrutores estadunidenses e britânicos. Nesse âmbito são treinados e armados também os estrangeiros, enviados, assim, para combater no Donbass contra os russos da Ucrânia. Ao voltarem à pátria, recebem o “passaporte ucraniano”, um tipo de salvo-conduto que pode servir em “todo o mundo”.

O quadro é claro. A Ucrânia de Kíev, já de fato na Otan sob o comando estadunidense, tornou-se o “santuário” do nazismo que ressurge no coração da Europa. O regime de Kíev pôs fora da lei não somente o Partido Comunista, mas o comunismo como tal, cuja proclamação é considerada um crime.

Transformou a Ucrânia em centro de recrutamento de neonazistas provenientes de países europeus e de fora da Europa, de fato selecionados, treinados e armados pela Otan. Depois de terem sido postos à prova em ações militares reais no Donbass, retornam com o “salvo-conduto” do passaporte ucraniano aos seus países, inclusive a Itália. Quem é mais capaz, entra na nova Gladio, pronta, se necessário, a provocar outra “Praça Maidan” (ou pior) na Europa. Tudo isto com a conivência dos governos europeus.

Aos que consideram tal cenário “conspirativo”, aconselhamos dar uma olhada na intervenção de Ferdinando Imposimato, presidente honorário do Supremo Tribunal de Cassação, na Convenção internacional organizada em Roma em 26 de outubro pelo Comitê Não à Guerra, Não à Otan. Ele afirma que “nas investigações que fiz sobre as tragédias que ocorreram na Praça Fontana, de Capaci e de Via d’Amelio, se comprovou que os explosivos utilizados provinham das bases da Otan”. Aqui se reuniam os terroristas, oficiais da Otan, mafiosos, políticos italianos e maçons, às vésperas dos atentados. E isto ocorria ininterruptamente desde o começo dos anos 1960”.

Em tal situação, continua, porém, a dominar, na esquerda italiana e europeia, o tabu da Otan. Na Itália, nenhum partido da oposição parlamentar tem no seu programa a saída da Otan.

Na Grécia, o Syriza de fato retirou do seu programa o objetivo de “fechar todas as bases estrangeiras na Grécia e sair da Otan”, como também o de “abolir os acordos de cooperação militar com Israel”, que ao contrário, têm sido reforçados com o que foi assinado em julho passado por Panos Kammenos, fundador do partido de direita Anel, ao qual o governo de Tsipras confiou o Ministério da Defesa.

O mesmo ocorre na Espanha, onde o Podemos, que tinha no seu programa um referendo sobre a saída da Otan, o redimensionou introduzindo no programa para as eleições de 20 de dezembro o objetivo de uma “maior autonomia estratégica da Espanha no seio da Otan”. Sergio Pascual, dirigente e candidato do Podemos em Sevilha, declara que sobre as bases militares estadunidenses na Espanha, “respeitaremos até a última vírgula os acordos assinados por nosso país”. O general Julio Rodriguez, candidato do Podemos a futuro ministro da Defesa, repete que “a Otan é necessária”. Como era em 2011 quando Rodriguez, na condição de chefe do Estado Maior, colaborava, como chefe da missão espanhola na Otan, no bombardeio da Líbia.

Manlio Dinucci

(1) Partido ucraniano de extrema-direita

Artigo original em italiano : http://ilmanifesto.info/nato-il-tabu-della-sinistra/

Tradução do Blog da Resistência

Manlio Dinucci : Jornalista, geógrafo e cientista político. Escreve regularmente no jornal italiano Il Manifesto

Our Planet Earth is heading straight towards the most dangerous collision in its history. It is not a collision with some foreign body, with an asteroid or a comet, but with the most brutal and selfish chunk of its own inhabitants: with people who proudly call themselves “members of the Western civilization.”

Again and again it is clearly demonstrated that Western culture, which the paramount psychologist Carl Jung used to call “pathology”, couldn’t be trusted.

This “culture” had already mercilessly slaughtered several hundreds of millions of people in all corners of the world; it enslaved entire continents, and plundered all that had any value, whether it was located above or under the surface of earth.

Inhabitants of Europe, the United States, as well as rulers of the client states, showed chilling indifference towards the suffering of their victims.

They also demonstrated utmost ignorance and the highest level of indoctrination!

For centuries, citizens of France, United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and other Western nations were staring at the battle ships leaving their shores, sailing towards Asia, Latin America and Africa … Mouths open wide; they were pretending that they did not really know what horrors these ships were going to spread. When the ships returned, packed with slaves and unimaginable booty, they shut down their brains, claimed ignorance once again, attributing thriving of their cities and states to some “Western ingenuity, enterprising spirit and hard work,” but definitely not to terror, rape and appalling plunder of the world.

What Germans did, gazing at the chimneys of the concentration camps that were regurgitating thick smoke of the victims of Holocaust and then claiming that “they did not know”, was exactly what all Europeans did for centuries and millennia, when their troops and “investments” into all sorts of Crusades, were looting and brutalizing everyone on the surface of our Planet.

Throughout the history, holocausts have been performed, again and again, all over Africa, in the Middle East, in Latin America, Caribbean, sub-Continent, and Asia Pacific, even in Oceania.

The Westerners never lifted a finger to stop crimes that their states have been committing! As long as they were getting fat, why should they? Their servile and cowardly intellectuals are still refusing, with some tiny exceptions that do not constitute even 1 percent, to depict gruesome destruction, humiliation and torment of “the others”. Western philosophers are locked at the sclerotic institutions called universities, whoring for tenures, instead of describing the world in all its sickening dismay. The media and artists are not fairing any better.

The role of Christianity has been vast and monstrous. In a foreseeable future I will dedicate an essay that will describe its responsibility for the global genocide, as well as a slender but provocative philosophic book on the same topic, co-authored with one of the leading Christian theologians. Christianity (even its non-religious forms called “secularism” or “atheism”) has been spreading intolerance, bigoted dogmas, exclusivism and complexes of superiority. It offered justification; it even inspired the crusades, colonial expansionism, mass murder as well as destruction of entire local cultures.

And yet, the same bandit nations, the same cowardly but sadistic culture, the same perverse religion, are still clinging to power, still torturing and murdering the millions.

Their gangrenous sisters, capitalism and nihilism, are brainwashing people all over the world, while driving them into dark valleys of despair.

It is because their weapons of mass destruction are the deadliest, their propaganda the most advanced, their opposition the most indoctrinated and their opposition almost non-existent!

*

War after war, genocide after genocide, the Westerners are still playing dumb! They refuse to acknowledge whet they are doing to the world.

When over 100 French people died during a bizarre recent string of attacks in Paris (who was behind them? West’s allies – jihadists, or maybe their own establishment?), Europeans began mourning their own victims – and pointing fingers at “the others”. People all over the world, either too scared to say “no” or too brainwashed as well, began expressing solidarity with the French nation.

Part of “The Jungle”, a terrible refugee camp near the French city of Calais, went ablaze. Refugees got attacked all over Europe, as “retaliation”. But retaliation for what? After all, refugees were only escaping their countries that were ruined and plundered by both Europe and the United States!

But this is not how a common European was instructed to see the world.

The common European and North American is much more submissive to the regime, than a common inhabitant of any other part of the world. He or she learns what is required to be learned, listens attentively what the media/propaganda people digest and serve. Debates are almost always within the permitted framework.

A common citizen of a Western country devours hours of bizarre entertainment daily (including “news entertainment”). They watch dozens of propaganda films and clips, every year. He or she can hardly make any distinction between reality and fiction, anymore. Such a citizen is willing to sacrifice billions of men, women and children all over the world just for their own material benefits and wellbeing.

All he or she knows, all he or she feels is (somehow abstractly) is that they are somehow “superior” to the rest of humanity; that their culture is exceptional and predestined to rule the world. All heor she senses is that he or she has the right to consume and to use all the natural resources of the world, and that their government can decide which country outside the Western realm should be allow to stand and which would be forced to fall.

Millions of human lives lost in the Middle East, tens of millions of men, women and children murdered by imperialism in Africa? Who cares? Who bloody cares? Westerner eats, copulates, sometimes works and then he either tries to enjoy his life, or he fights for much better benefits… for himself, or for herself. Rest of the world is there to provide or to subsidize such benefits; that is all.

The dumber they, the Westerners, are, the more self-assured and arrogant their worldview. You see people like this in a pub, but you also see them controlling all international organizations, even the UN agencies. Those big, beefy, tall Germans, Scandinavians, North Americans, Brits – speaking with air of a stone superiority to those “agile Asians, clumsy Africans and insecure Arabs”! Telling them what to do, how to run their societies. Absolutely no shame! You would never hear them lamenting: “We fucked up the world. We raped the planet. We are still doing it…” Never.

No apologies, no remorse, no grand plan for how to reverse the flow, how to return at least some part of what had been stolen and how to stop murdering.

Of course, everywhere you go, you read stuff like “May Peace Prevail on Earth!”

*

Yes, over 100 people died in Paris. Right before that, almost 50 died in Beirut, Lebanon. While thousands are dying in Yemen, every month… While 17,000 already vanished in Iran – victims of West-sponsored terrorism… While hundreds of thousands have been dying in Libya and Syria… While millions have been dying in Somalia and Iraq… While some 10 millions already died in a looted and raped DRC (the Democratic Republic of Congo) … All of them victims of Western assaults and banditry or of Western-sponsored terrorism directly!

All those Mujahedeen, al-Qaida, al-Nusra, IS… That entire Wahhabi fundamentalism created first by the British and later North American imperialism. All that vile, toxic stuff that had been armed, and financed and serviced by the Europeans, as well as Saudis, Turks and other great allies of the West.

And why was that stinky stuff so diligently armed and financed? So it could ruin and destroy progressive, socialist Islam, from Egypt to Iran to Indonesia! So it could destroy the Soviet Union and any Marxist roots in Afghanistan! So it could murder millions of progressive people in those proud and independent nations. So the West could rule, unopposed, grabbing all it wants, deciding who will be governing where!

*

Now Russia stands against the terror with its fighter jets. Its bombers are flying sorties for survival of this humanity. Just recently, Russia already paid a tremendous price, and we all know what it was. But it is used to paying unimaginable prices, for the survival of our planet. 25 million human lives in just one war, in order to defeat Nazism. Or great chunk of economic output of the USSR, “just” in order to defeat Western imperialism and colonialism.

China sent military advisers, and is standing by, rock solid, shoulder-to-shoulder Russia.

Syria managed to shock the world by refusing to surrender, by fighting with unimaginable heroism against all odds. Half of its people are on the move, millions of refugees are flooding all shores, but the country is standing tall, injured and bleeding but standing, nevertheless.

And so is Latin America, despite all those vicious attacks from the West. Standing, damn it, standing towering and proud!

And those ignorant, selfish, brutal hordes in the West see nothing. They repeat propaganda injected to their heads, providing slight variations to it, calling it freedom of expression!

*

After the “Paris attacks”, Western propaganda is in top gear once again. Its apparatchiks were clearly “prepared and ready”. Future direct attacks against Syria are already “justified” well in advance. Not against ISIS (although that would be the official pretext), but against President al-Assad and his government which is, despite everything, supported by the majority of Syrian people. Attacks against Syria will not be called “Western terrorism”, but something like a “heroic revenge”.

Can this planet be entrusted to those who watch crap on their television screens, day after day – both Hollywood propaganda production, and news propaganda briefings?

Can anything that comes from the West be taken seriously, after centuries of lies and murder?

Who is killing whom, lately? Who is behind what?

I will stick to what I know. And what I know is who is actually killing millions in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

I will not speculate about some “insider job” of the Empire, although I have some strong suspicions; of course I do! For now I will only stick to facts that I can prove.

And the facts are simple and horrendous: the Empire has been murdering tens of millions of people on our planet. The Empire, and that self-perpetuated ignorance, fundamentalism and blindness of its indoctrinated citizens!

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and  “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”.  Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

Friday’s devastating attacks in Paris left hundreds dead or injured, paralyzed the city and brought ISIS’s terrorism to the Western world for the first time.

In the days since the attacks, love and support for the beloved French capital has poured out from every corner of the world. The Empire State Building and Sydney Opera House were lit in the colors of the French flag. Facebook quickly rolled out a tricolor profile picture filter so users could “support France and the people of Paris” and a “safety check” feature to allow people in Paris to alert their friends and family members that they were safe.

President Barack Obama noted that “this was an attack not just on Paris… not just on the people of France, but… on all of humanity and the universal values that we share.”

But there was another ISIS attack late last week that was every bit as tragic. It took place in Beirut – the city that many of my ancestors called home, and where I now also live and work, as a foreign correspondent. Yet the attack was barely noticed in the West. As messages of solidarity with France flood my social media feeds, and friends and peers express horror at the atrocities committed, I’m left wondering why my own people — and my peers, who make up the bulk of my stories — aren’t deemed worthy of the same caliber of coverage, the same palpable collective grief.

On Thursday evening, two ISIS operatives, whose identities are still unknown, exploded themselves in a crowded marketplace in the Bourj al-Barajneh neighborhood of Beirut, killing 44 and injuring more than 200 others in the worst terrorist attack the city has seen in years.

Although the terrorist group behind the attacks in Paris and Beirut was the same, the Western media narrative has been vastly different. In Paris, ISIS attacked the city’s progressive youth, massacring dozens enjoying their night out at a concert, a soccer game and a restaurant. In Beirut, ISIS struck a “Hezbollah stronghold” in the “southern suburbs of Beirut,” a poor, majority Shia area often characterized as a bastion of terrorism in the region. The attack was portrayed as little more than strategic punishment for Hezbollah’s ongoing involvement in the Syrian civil war and support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Most media did not mention that, while Bourj al-Barajneh is located in the southern suburbs of Beirut, and does, like many traditionally Palestinian refugee camps, have a Hezbollah presence, it is also a diverse neighborhood, full of Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians with a variety of political and religious affiliations. The attackers that exploded themselves in the crowded marketplace intended to massacre as many civilians as possible, taking with them men, women, children, students and older people of all faiths and backgrounds. One of the casualties was a Lebanese-American woman who was visiting for just a few days from Dearborn, Michigan, hoping to bring some of her family back to the United States.

But when the blasts went off in Beirut, there was no “safety check” on Facebook for Lebanese — or Syrians or Palestinians — living in Bourj al-Barajneh. No world leader called it an “attack on all of humanity.” There were no visible solidarity demonstrations, showing support and compassion for those who lost their lives.

Needless to say, the Empire State Building did not project a cedar tree — the iconic symbol of the Lebanese flag — over the New York City skyline.

It is scientifically proven, and emotionally understandable, that a small tragedy in one’s own backyard elicits more grief than a global catastrophe on the other side of the world. But in the case of Paris and Beirut, it’s perplexing why one is worthy of collective grief and mourning, while the other is not.

Why is violence in one part of the world barely worthy of news coverage, while violence in another collectively mourned?

Is it because bombs and violence are considered routine in the Middle East, but not in Europe?

This is not only about Paris and Beirut. It is also about the daily bombings and frequent massacres in Syria and Iraq that have largely fallen off the media’s radar. It is about the borders that are rapidly closing for Syrians and Iraqis fleeing ISIS violence in their own countries, leaving them with no option but to make dangerous sea crossings and walk through Europe, illegally crossing borders until they can hope to claim asylum. It is about the fact that the passport one holds — an accident of birth, in most cases — makes some people worthy of safety and compassion, and others not.

It’s not just Paris: All of these tragedies are “an attack on all of humanity.”

The following video is an interview Sara Flounders conducted with RT International on Friday night, Nov 13, just after the attacks in Paris, as news was breaking. 

It is a discussion of the French government’s war in Syria – a war the majority of French people oppose. Also it deals with the way repression and racism is used against immigrant populations.

The rally at CNN in NYC on Sunday with the slogan: Don’t Allow Paris Attacks to be a Pretext for War and Racism was a response we need to duplicate,

In the days following the horrific terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of 129 innocent civilians in Paris, the response from within the US political establishment and media has been as predictable as it is reactionary. Stoking desires for revenge and exploiting the shock over the attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), politicians, pundits and the media are mounting a drumbeat propaganda offensive for an escalation of military aggression abroad and police state repression at home.

CIA Director John Brennan was among the most blunt on the home front, declaring that the Paris attacks must serve as a “wake-up call.” He demanded an end to “hand-wringing” over blanket government spying on the entire population of the US and the world carried out in the name of combating terrorism.

Among the Obama administration’s Republican critics, there were demands for a sharp escalation of the US military intervention in the Middle East, including calls for the dispatch of another American expeditionary force into Syria. Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential candidate, in an opinion piece published by the Washington Post Sunday, called for a “war on ISIS,” saying the US must “devote whatever resources are required to win—even boots on the ground.” In a subsequent television interview, he made clear that this meant sending tens of thousands of troops into Syria.

Even more telling was the media’s behavior at Barack Obama’s press conference Monday at the G20 meeting in Antalya, Turkey, where the US president described ISIS as “the face of evil” and declared that Washington’s goal is “to degrade and ultimately destroy this barbaric terrorist organization.”

Correspondents from the major US news outlets rose, one after the other, to goad the president into announcing a more aggressive militarist policy.

CBS:

“A more than yearlong bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria has failed to contain the ambition and the ability of ISIS to launch attacks in the West. Have you underestimated their abilities? And will you widen the rules of engagement for US forces to take more aggressive action?”

ABC:

“ …address your critics who say that your reluctance to enter another Middle East war, and your preference of diplomacy over using the military, makes the United States weaker and emboldens our enemies.”

CNN:

“I think a lot of Americans have this frustration that they see that the United States has the greatest military in the world… I guess the question is—and if you’ll forgive the language—is why can’t we take out these bastards?”

The thrust of these questions is clear. After more than 14 years of a US “war on terror” that has plunged the entire Middle East into chaos and carnage, the rising demand from a sizable section of the US ruling establishment is for an even more deadly eruption of American imperialism.

What is deliberately obscured by this outpouring of jingoism is the fact that the terrorist attacks in Paris, and ISIS itself, are the direct products of nearly a decade-and-a-half of US military intervention aimed at imposing US hegemony over this oil-rich region.

ISIS emerged as the byproduct of the unprovoked US war of aggression against Iraq and the subsequent American divide-and-conquer strategy of manipulating and exacerbating sectarian divisions in that country. With the Bush administration having overthrown Saddam Hussein, a secular autocrat, the Obama administration—in alliance with France—embarked on another military adventure, launching the US-NATO war for regime-change in Libya. The imperialists utilized Islamist militias allied to ISIS and Al Qaeda as their proxy ground troops.

Succeeding in toppling and murdering a second secular ruler, Muammar Gaddafi, and leaving Libya in a state of collapse and permanent civil war, the Obama administration decided to repeat this “success” in Syria, where it fomented a civil war. It utilized these same Islamist organizations, augmented by vast stocks of weaponry funneled in from Libya as well as an army of foreign fighters brought in from across the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia.

Now, after ISIS has succeeded in seizing a third of Iraq along with roughly half of Syria, Washington claims to be engaged in a “war” on the Islamist organization. Its principal allies in this venture are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, which have provided the religious-ideological inspiration, financial resources and weapons that have allowed ISIS to make the gains it has made.

If, after a year of air strikes, the dispatch of thousands of US troops to Iraq and now the deployment of Special Forces units to Syria, this “war” has done virtually nothing to reduce either the geographical reach or troop strength of ISIS, this is no accident. Washington’s main aim remains regime-change in Syria, as part of a broader strategy of weakening the influence of Iran, Russia and China in the region and preparing for far more dangerous military confrontations. To the extent that ISIS fights the troops of the Syrian government, it remains a US ally.

While Obama claims to have seen the “face of evil” in the Paris events, when ISIS was carrying out even bloodier atrocities against Syrian religious minorities and populations supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad, there was no outcry from the US or its allies. Over the past four years of civil war, the Syrian population’s average daily fatalities have surpassed the number of people killed in Paris last Friday.

Moreover, the attacks in Paris are only the latest in a series of overseas attacks by the Islamist group. In the speculation over ISIS responsibility for bringing down a Russian passenger jet and killing 224 people on October 31, there was less outrage than barely concealed gloating by the Western media, anxious to see Moscow humiliated over its intervention in Syria.

Similarly, last week’s twin suicide bombings that killed at least 43 people in a working-class suburb in southern Beirut was almost universally reported by the US media as an attack on a “Hezbollah stronghold,” again suggesting that the innocent civilian victims got what was coming to them because of the Shia movement’s support for the Assad government.

Terrorism as a thing in itself is not seen as a critical problem for the American ruling establishment. Obama told the press conference in Turkey that his “closest military and civilian advisors” had counseled him that sending tens of thousands of troops into Syria would not be worth the effort.

Terrorism, from the standpoint of these elements within the vast US military and intelligence apparatus, is a useful tactic when directed against Washington’s enemies. It is merely part of the cost of doing business when it hits the US and its allies. And it can be exploited as a pretext for increased militarism and the suppression of political opposition.

In the end, Obama’s “advisors” have bigger things in mind. Little more than a week ago, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter delivered a speech affirming that Russia and China, not ISIS or terrorism, constitute the main threat to Washington’s interests. Driven by its insoluble crisis and contradictions, US imperialism is preparing for the greatest act of mass terror in human history: World War Three.

Anti-ISIS activists in Syria claim a stadium, a museum, medical clinics and a political building have been hit after France launched airstrikes in retaliation for the Paris terror attack.

Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, a group of anonymous activists inside the ISIS stronghold, wrote that heavy strikes had been taking place since this morning. The group began documented the airstrikes at around 8am and said it had increased to “30 airstrikes” this evening. No civilian casualties have been reported yet, according to the group.

A spokesperson for the group suggested it was France who were behind the bombs. They said water and electricity was cut due to the strikes. They added: “It’s sad how it always falls on our heads, god bless and safe [sic] the civilians of Raqqa.”

France retaliated to the Paris terror attack by launching deadly airstrikes on an Islamic State jihadi training camp in Syria tonight. Yesterday French president Francois Hollande vowed to crush the extremist group who massacred 129 people on Friday night. Less than 24 hours later, some 10 fighter jets pummeled the ISIS-held city of Raqqa with at least 20 bombs, according to the French defence ministry. The jets hit command and control center, jihadi recruitment center, munitions depot and a training camp.

Comment: The Guardianis saying the same:

The Raqqa strikes, 20 in total, targeted parts of the city that had not been hit before, including a sports stadium, a museum, an equestrian centre and several administration buildings.

Now, who is going to come out and state the obvious?

Regardless of what targets are hit or not, these airstrikes have no legal mandate. They are a violation of international law.

In transmitting President Richard Nixon’s orders for a “massive” bombing of Cambodia in 1969, Henry Kissinger said, “Anything that flies on everything that moves”. As Barack Obama wages his seventh war against the Muslim world since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and Francois Hollande promises a “merciless” attack on that ruined country, the orchestrated hysteria and lies make one almost nostalgic for Kissinger’s murderous honesty.

As a witness to the human consequences of aerial savagery – including the beheading of victims, their parts festooning trees and fields – I am not surprised by the disregard of memory and history, yet again. A telling example is the rise to power of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, who had much in common with today’s Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They, too, were ruthless medievalists who began as a small sect. They, too, were the product of an American-made apocalypse, this time in Asia.

According to Pol Pot, his movement had consisted of “fewer than 5,000 poorly armed guerrillas uncertain about their strategy, tactics, loyalty and leaders”. Once Nixon’s and Kissinger’s B-52 bombers had gone to work as part of “Operation Menu”, the west’s ultimate demon could not believe his luck. The Americans dropped the equivalent of five Hiroshimas on rural Cambodia during 1969-73. They leveled village after village, returning to bomb the rubble and corpses. The craters left giant necklaces of carnage, still visible from the air. The terror was unimaginable. A former Khmer Rouge official described how the survivors “froze up and they would wander around mute for three or four days.

Terrified and half-crazy, the people were ready to believe what they were told… That was what made it so easy for the Khmer Rouge to win the people over.” A Finnish Government Commission of Inquiry estimated that 600,000 Cambodians died in the ensuing civil war and described the bombing as the “first stage in a decade of genocide”. What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot, their beneficiary, completed. Under their bombs, the Khmer Rouge grew to a formidable army of 200,000.

ISIS has a similar past and present. By most scholarly measure, Bush and Blair’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the deaths of at least 700,000 people – in a country that had no history of jihadism. The Kurds had done territorial and political deals; Sunni and Shia had class and sectarian differences, but they were at peace; intermarriage was common. Three years before the invasion, I drove the length of Iraq without fear. On the way I met people proud, above all, to be Iraqis, the heirs of a civilization that seemed, for them, a presence.

Bush and Blair blew all this to bits. Iraq is now a nest of jihadism. Al-Qaeda – like Pol Pot’s “jihadists” – seized the opportunity provided by the onslaught of ‘Shock and Awe’ and the civil war that followed. “Rebel” Syria offered even greater rewards, with CIA and Gulf state ratlines of weapons, logistics and money running through Turkey. The arrival of foreign recruits was inevitable. A former British ambassador, Oliver Miles, wrote, “The [Cameron] government seems to be following the example of Tony Blair, who ignored consistent advice from the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6 that our Middle East policy – and in particular our Middle East wars – had been a principal driver in the recruitment of Muslims in Britain for terrorism here.”

ISIS is the progeny of those in Washington, London and Paris who, in conspiring to destroy Iraq, Syria and Libya, committed an epic crime against humanity. Like Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, ISIS are the mutations of a western state terror dispensed by a venal imperial elite undeterred by the consequences of actions taken at great remove in distance and culture. Their culpability is unmentionable in “our” societies, making accomplices of those who suppress this critical truth.

It is 23 years since a holocaust enveloped Iraq, immediately after the first Gulf War, when the US and Britain hijacked the United Nations Security Council and imposed punitive “sanctions” on the Iraqi population – ironically, reinforcing the domestic authority of Saddam Hussein. It was like a medieval siege. Almost everything that sustained a modern state was, in the jargon, “blocked” – from chlorine for making the water supply safe to school pencils, parts for X-ray machines, common painkillers and drugs to combat previously unknown cancers carried in the dust from the southern battlefields contaminated with Depleted Uranium. Just before Christmas 1999, the Department of Trade and Industry in London restricted the export of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever. Kim Howells, parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Blair government, explained why. “The children’s vaccines”, he said, “were capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction”. The British Government could get away with such an outrage because media reporting of Iraq – much of it manipulated by the Foreign Office – blamed Saddam Hussein for everything.

Under a bogus “humanitarian” Oil for Food Programme, $100 was allotted for each Iraqi to live on for a year. This figure had to pay for the entire society’s infrastructure and essential services, such as power and water. “Imagine,” the UN Assistant Secretary General, Hans Von Sponeck, told me, “setting that pittance against the lack of clean water, and the fact that the majority of sick people cannot afford treatment, and the sheer trauma of getting from day to day, and you have a glimpse of the nightmare. And make no mistake, this is deliberate. I have not in the past wanted to use the word genocide, but now it is unavoidable.” Disgusted, Von Sponeck resigned as UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq. His predecessor, Denis Halliday, an equally distinguished senior UN official, had also resigned. “I was instructed,” Halliday said, “to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults.”

A study by the United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, found that between 1991 and 1998, the height of the blockade, there were 500,000 “excess” deaths of Iraqi infants under the age of five. An American TV reporter put this to Madeleine Albright, US Ambassador to the United Nations, asking her, “Is the price worth it?” Albright replied, “We think the price is worth it.”

In 2007, the senior British official responsible for the sanctions, Carne Ross, known as “Mr. Iraq”, told a parliamentary selection committee, “[The US and UK governments] effectively denied the entire population a means to live.” When I interviewed Carne Ross three years later, he was consumed by regret and contrition. “I feel ashamed,” he said. He is today a rare truth-teller of how governments deceive and how a compliant media plays a critical role in disseminating and maintaining the deception. “We would feed [journalists] factoids of sanitised intelligence,” he said, “or we’d freeze them out.” Last year, a not untypical headline in the Guardian read: “Faced with the horror of Isis we must act.” The “we must act” is a ghost risen, a warning of the suppression of informed memory, facts, lessons learned and regrets or shame. The author of the article was Peter Hain, the former Foreign Office minister responsible for Iraq under Blair. In 1998, when Denis Halliday revealed the extent of the suffering in Iraq for which the Blair Government shared primary responsibility, Hain abused him on the BBC’s Newsnight as an “apologist for Saddam”. In 2003, Hain backed Blair’s invasion of stricken Iraq on the basis of transparent lies. At a subsequent Labour Party conference, he dismissed the invasion as a “fringe issue”.

Here was Hain demanding “air strikes, drones, military equipment and other support” for those “facing genocide” in Iraq and Syria. This will further “the imperative of a political solution”. The day Hain’s article appeared, Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck happened to be in London and came to visit me. They were not shocked by the lethal hypocrisy of a politician, but lamented the enduring, almost inexplicable absence of intelligent diplomacy in negotiating a semblance of truce. Across the world, from Northern Ireland to Nepal, those regarding each other as terrorists and heretics have faced each other across a table. Why not now in Iraq and Syria? Instead, there is a vapid, almost sociopathic verboseness from Cameron, Hollande, Obama and their “coalition of the willing” as they prescribe more violence delivered from 30,000 feet on places where the blood of previous adventures never dried. They seem to relish their own violence and stupidityso much they want it to overthrow their one potentially valuable ally, the government in Syria.

This is nothing new, as the following leaked UK-US intelligence file illustrates:

“In order to facilitate the action of liberative [sic] forces… a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals [and] to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria. CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main [sic] incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals… a necessary degree of fear… frontier and [staged] border clashes [will] provide a pretext for intervention… the CIA and SIS should use… capabilities in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.”

That was written in 1957, although it could have been written yesterday. In the imperial world, nothing essentially changes. In 2013, the former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas revealed that “two years before the Arab spring”, he was told in London that a war on Syria was planned. “I am going to tell you something,” he said in an interview with the French TV channel LPC, “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria… Britain was organising an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate… This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned.”

The only effective opponents of ISIS are accredited demons of the west – Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and now Russia. The obstacle is Turkey, an “ally” and a member of Nato, which has conspired with the CIA, MI6 and the Gulf medievalists to channel support to the Syrian “rebels”, including those now calling themselves ISIS. Supporting Turkey in its long-held ambition for regional dominance by overthrowing the Assad government beckons a major conventional war and the horrific dismemberment of the most ethnically diverse state in the Middle East.

A truce – however difficult to negotiate and achieve – is the only way out of this maze; otherwise, the atrocities in Paris and Beirut will be repeated. Together with a truce, the leading perpetrators and overseers of violence in the Middle East – the Americans and Europeans – must themselves “de-radicalise” and demonstrate a good faith to alienated Muslim communities everywhere, including those at home. There should be an immediate cessation of all shipments of war materials to Israel and recognition of the State of Palestine. The issue of Palestine is the region’s most festering open wound, and the oft-stated justification for the rise of Islamic extremism. Osama bin Laden made that clear. Palestine also offers hope. Give justice to the Palestinians and you begin to change the world around them.

More than 40 years ago, the Nixon-Kissinger bombing of Cambodia unleashed a torrent of suffering from which that country has never recovered. The same is true of the Blair-Bush crime in Iraq, and the Nato and “coalition” crimes in Libya and Syria.

With impeccable timing, Henry Kissinger’s latest self-serving tome has been released with its satirical title, “World Order”. In one fawning review, Kissinger is described as a “key shaper of a world order that remained stable for a quarter of a century”. Tell that to the people of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Chile, East Timor and all the other victims of his “statecraft”. Only when “we” recognise the war criminals in our midst and stop denying ourselves the truth will the blood begin to dry.

In a classic Putin move, the Russian President presented evidence of G20 member states providing financial support to ISIS…during the G20 summit in Antalya. Speaking with reporters after the summit, Putin revealed:

I provided examples related to our data on the financing of Islamic State units by natural persons in various countries. The financing comes from 40 countries, as we established, including some G20 members

Putin also provided satellite images of the Islamic State’s lucrative oil smuggling operations:

I’ve demonstrated the pictures from space to our colleagues, which clearly show the true size of the illegal trade of oil and petroleum products market. Car convoys stretching for dozens of kilometers, going beyond the horizon when seen from a height of four-five thousand meters

Interestingly, immediately after the summit, the U.S. announced that its warplanes had begun to bomb ISIS truck convoys  used to “smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria”. What a strange coincidence. It’s as if the U.S. knew exactly where these convoys were, but didn’t feel compelled to destroy them until now. The world is full of mysteries!

But the real story here is that Putin actually got up in front of the world’s largest economic powers and told them, right to their faces, that Russia knows exactly what they are doing.

The following video is part of an upcoming six part series on coercive engineered migration and terrorism in Europe.

This article was first published on February 16, 2014. In early 2014, ISIS fighters were heralded by Washington as “Freedom Fighters”. A few months later, Obama launches his crusade against the Islamic state fighters who had been trained and financed by US-NATO and its Persian Gulf allies. 

Several hundred convicted criminals who escaped from carefully guarded prisons in Iraq have recently joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as well as the Al Qaeda affiliated rebel force, Jabhat Al Nusra.

According to the NYT: “the prison breaks also reflect the surging demand for experienced fighters which led to a concerted effort by militant groups, particularly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, to seek them in the one place where they were held en masse — Iraq’s prison cells.” (Tim Arango  and Eric Schmitt, Escaped Inmates From Iraq Fuel Syrian Insurgency, NYT, February 12, 2014):

“American officials estimate, a few hundred of the escapees have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, several in senior leadership roles.”

Acknowledged by the NYT, the prison breakouts are part of the recruitment of jihadists to serve in the Syrian insurgency. What is not mentioned, however, is that the recruitment of mercenaries is  coordinated by NATO, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar with the support of the Obama administration. Moreover, known and documented, most Al Qaeda affiliated forces are covertly supported by Western intelligence including the CIA, Mossad and Britain’s MI6.

The prison breaks in Iraq are part of a coordinated endeavor entitled  “Operation Breaking the Walls,” established in July 2012 by the ISIS. Acknowledged by an American counterterrorism official quoted by the NYT,

 “The influx of these terrorists, who collectively have decades of battlefield experience, probably has strengthened the group and deepened its leadership bench.”

US Occupation forces and military personnel in the prisons turned a blind eye to the breakouts.

Abu Aisha was originally arrested by the Americans and then released from Camp Bucca, the infamous American prison in southern Iraq, in 2008. He was rearrested by the Iraqis in 2010.

“Finally, they put me in Abu Ghraib, and I again met some of the leaders and fighters I knew, including princes from Al Qaeda — Iraqis, Arabs and other nationalities,” he said. “Most of them had been at Bucca as well.”

One night last summer, as Abu Aisha sat in his cell waiting, as he did each day, for his date with the executioner, explosions and gunfire erupted and a familiar prison guard opened the doors to his cell and told him to leave immediately. With hundreds of others, Abu Aisha ran through the prison’s corridors until he escaped through a hole that had been blasted through a wall. He hopped into a waiting Kia truck that took him to freedom — and back to the battlefield.

Abu Aisha said leaders of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria gave him a choice: leave and fight with them in Syria, or stay and fight in Iraq. (NYT, op cit, emphasis added)

Coordinated Program: Saudi Arabia

The recent prison breakouts have the hallmarks of a carefully planned covert operation requiring the complicity of the US military and Iraqi prison personnel.

The prison breakouts are not limited to Iraq. Planned prison escapes to join the jihadist insurgency have occurred simultaneously in several countries, indicating the existence of a coordinated recruitment program.

Saudi Arabia –which has played a central role in channeling weapons (including anti-aircraft missiles) to the jihadists on behalf of Washington– has been actively involved in the recruitment of mercenaries from the kingdom’s prisons.

In Saudi Arabia, however, there were no breakouts: criminals serving jail sentences were released from the kingdom’s prisons on condition they join the Syrian jihad.

A top secret memo sent by the Ministry of Interior in Saudi Arabia “reveals the Saudi Kingdom sent death-row inmates, sentenced to execution by decapitation, to Syria to fight Jihad against the Syrian government in exchange for commuting their sentences.”

On Saturday, July 26, at a maximum security prison in Benghazi, Libya, an almost identical prison break to the one that happened in Iraq occurred:

There were riots within the prison, with fires set. Suddenly gunmen flocked upon the prison and opened fire. About 1,200 of Libya’s most deadly inmates escaped.  Peregrino Brimah, Obama’s Syria Endgame: New Al Qaeda “Recruits” Dispatched to Syria, Global Research, September 4,  2013, emphasis added)

And midnight, July 29-30:

Taliban gunmen with rocket launchers and suicide bombers, wearing police uniforms attacked the largest jail in Dera Ismail Khan, in a northern Pakistani province, releasing over 300 inmates. They came well coordinated, with rocket-propelled grenades and freed top militants–some of the Taliban’s most deadly men. They used loud speakers to announce the names of the men they needed. According to an official (Reuters), only 70 of the 200 guards on duty were at work that fateful night, suggesting higher level security-government involvement. (Ibid, emphasis added)

The U.S. claims it wants to hit the Islamic State but in one year of bombing it never really touched one of its biggest sources of income. Hundreds of oil tanker trucks are waiting every day at IS distribution points to smuggle oil to Turkey and elsewhere. Only one such distribution point was ever bombed and that attack was  by the Iraqi air force.

Now the Russian President Putin played some “name and shame” at the G-20 meeting in Turkey and, lo and behold, the problem gets solved.

The Obama administration recently claimed it would increase attacks on the most expensive Syrian oil infrastructure which is owned by the Syrian government but under IS control. But it said it would still not hit the large truck gatherings.

While the American-led air campaign has conducted periodic airstrikes against oil refineries and other production facilities in eastern Syria that the group controls, the organization’s engineers have been able to quickly repair damage, and keep the oil flowing, American officials said. The Obama administration has also balked at attacking the Islamic State’s fleet of tanker trucks — its main distribution network — fearing civilian casualties.But now the administration has decided to increase the attacks and focus on inflicting damage that takes longer to fix or requires specially ordered parts, American officials said.

The obvious target to stop the oil trade is to hit the trucks. Without trucks the other infrastructure is useless for IS as the oil can not be sold. With trucks destroyed the men behind the smuggling will lose all profits and leave the business. The “civilian casualties” argument does not hold. There could be warnings to avoid human damage or one could consider that these oil smugglers are dealing with terrorists and thereby accomplices. The real U.S. reluctance to hit the oil smuggling might be out of deference to the Turkish government which of course profits from such oil transfers.

Then came along Russia and its President Putin and demonstrated at the current G-20 meeting that the U.S. is not serious about fighting IS. Today the Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt reports remarks by President Putin from a G-20 sideline event:

Abdullah Bozkurt @abdbozkurt

Putin in #Turkey: I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different #ISIL units by private individuals.”This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them”, Putin says

“I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space & from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil”

Putin provided that information and the photos yesterday. Obama must have been deeply embarrassed. Suddenly, a day after Putin exposed the U.S. reluctance to hit IS where it is needed, a big truck assembly was bombed:

Intensifying pressure on the Islamic State, United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State.
…
Until Monday, the United States had refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1,000 tanker trucks, because of concerns about causing civilian casualties. As a result, the Islamic State’s distribution system for exporting oil had remained largely intact.

It seems that Putin’s naming and shaming with regards to the oil smuggling was successful. We might soon see a similar effect on the financing sources he mentioned.

I was sickened to hear and watch the events occurring in France.  Part of that was for the immediate families, friends and neighbours of those so needlessly killed.  Another part was the fear factor, not fear of terror or for myself but fear for how the powers that be would ratchet up the security control within their own societies by using their own biased racist fear factors in order to rationalize it to control their own populations.  A wider perspective is the sick feeling of realizing that humanity in general is capable of producing such atrocities.

The latter is where a large problem arises within our supposedly ‘civilized’ western world.  It is not just the terrorists who are capable of atrocities against humanity; it is not just Muslim fanatics who are capable of terrorising the west; it is not the ‘other’ who is capable of demonizing and killing their opponents. It is you and I and the societies that we support that are also capable of producing terror across large swathes of the world.

Just as the roots of terror lie within our own hands, so do the roots of an altruistic humanitarian outlook.

It is our history of moral superiority and technological advantage for which we, the ‘western’ world, the ‘civilized’ world, perceive ourselves as being superior – well, look  at us, living lifestyles of comparative wealth and luxury to much of the world, of course we are superior.  What is not contained within that narrative is that our wealth has much more to do with the imperial conquests by the European ‘west’ of various regions in order to extract their wealth of whatever sort.  Our moral superiority is nothing more than a gloss of rhetoric over the motivation to use a superior military technology to subdue, conquer, and extract wealth from other regions and other peoples.

In short the roots of terror lie within our own hands.  Certainly other civilizations of past eras have done the same thing with their own versions of morality and technological advantages.  That only underlines the idea that this is a human condition, with our current version apparently much more deadly than previous iterations of our collective and unrecognized heart of darkness.

Imperial overdrive for power and control.

Wherein, then, do the roots of terror lie, historically apart from within ourselves generally?  One could trace the roots of terror back to the beginning of historical times, and then beyond into pre-history.  But as we are supposedly a morally/technologically superior society today, the roots of today’s terror can arguably be traced back to World War I, its imperial atrocities on all sides, followed by the demise of the Ottoman Empire.

Before then of course is the whole colonial history concerning the conquest of the Americas and the subjugation of its indigenous population.  Societies then, almost wholly European, used the same old/same old tactics of arguing moral superiority while utilizing brutal technologies to subjugate and destroy native people.  Africa was dealt the same deal, and while the indigenous populations were not destroyed, the slavery, resource extraction, and control of the physical land covered the entire continent.  Most parts of Asia, whether the British in Southern Asia or the French in Southeast Asia, with the Portuguese and Dutch scattered throughout the region, underwent a similar colonial pattern.

World War I was effectively a clash of these empires trying to supercede the control of the other empires for the wealth and power of the rest of the world.  From that war rose the divisions of the Middle East by the British and French into either outright control or spheres of influence ranging from the Sykes-Picot secret agreement through to the League of Nations mandates.  The Versailles peace, while it ‘worked’ for some, failed miserably for others, not meeting the ideals of the Wilsonian rhetoric about all nationalities deciding their own futures democratically.

Because of that failure, World War II became the last and largest battle of World War I, witnessing again a change in the imperial overlords.  Politically, financially, and economically, the U.S. became the dominant power gaining control of Europe through NATO, and using a combination of military and financial tactics to try and gain control of the rest who were not willing to submit to U.S. dominance.  The readings of history are widely available, with various interpretations, with the general trend being one of an artificial moral superiority, combined with powerful economic forces (Bretton Woods, World Bank, IMF, WTO, OECD, et al), all sustained through covert and overt military actions.

The unipolar empire

The collapse of the Soviet Union is probably the most current historical turning point.  It left the U.S. and its partners as the heirs apparent to being the global hegemon.  A global peace would surely ensue, it was the ‘end of history’.  Unfortunately the same imperial imperative from centuries past survived and thrived with what was supposed to become the New World Order.  It played out militarily through the designs of the Grand Chessboard, rather than through the logic of orderly trade and cultural interaction searching for a better understanding of each other’s cultures.

Arguably, the 9/11 attacks on the WTC could be labelled as a more important inflection point of history, but it is more readily seen as a culmination of blowback from actions taken by the global imperial hegemon after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  That incident released powerful forces already prepared, ready to be set in motion.  It was the ‘New Pearl Harbour’ desired by the authors of the Project for a New American Century (Kristol, Feith, Kagan, Wolfowiz, Woolsey,Rumsfield, Bolton, Perle) who had been around since Reagan’s tenure.  It allowed the rapid passing of the Homeland Security Act, one so large it had to be by necessity ready to go for such a framework.  It ramped up the rogue nature of U.S. military and corporate actions globally, as their infamous ‘with us or against us’ paradigm turned everything black and white, losing all perspectives of grey or colour.

The ultimate goal was global hegemony, the containment and or destruction of both Russia and China, the unparalleled support of Israel, and the demonization of all things Islamic.  It was applied ruthlessly through all means of military operations, through the manipulation of international standards (e.g. the so called ‘right to protect’ doctrine), through the manipulation of financial markets and last but not least, the outright control of the mainstream media and its acquiescence, indeed promotion of,  imperial rhetoric.

Multipolarity renewed

Fortunately we are at another inflection point in history – not fortunate for the depth of its current and potential violence – fortunate in that the ‘rest of the world’ has acted against the imperial overdrive of the U.S. and its imperial cohorts and satraps.

Yes, the attacks in Paris were brutal, vicious and intended to terrorize.  But what of the terror that has been instigated in the name of empire, the empire in which you and I live?  Is it less of a terror tactic to bomb cities, villages, and countrysides indiscriminately as in the Vietnam War?  Are we more ‘civilized’ now that we pretend to use smart weapons?  Is shock and awe a feature of technological morality making us superior to the thousands killed immediately, with millions more affected in subsequent years?  Is the use of hyperbaric bombs, cluster munitions, white phosphorous, depleted uranium munitions, Hellfire missiles, dense inert metal explosives – all used by ‘civilized’ western powers in the wars of the Middle East and beyond – is that being more civilized?

Similarly is the control and manipulation of the financial world a morally justifiable act?  Are ‘free trade’ agreements anything but free when they subjugate the junior partner to both financial and legislative/legal terms that essentially destroy sovereignty?  Is our lifestyle –  predicated on consumption, living within a rentier extractive economy (living in debt), buying cheap resources and goods from countries subject to financial and military imperial overdrive – is that how we rationalize our moral superiority?

This is understood by some of the world.  It is seldom if ever recognized within the mainstream media, except for the odd occasion when a ‘balanced’ report is made on a situation in which there is no balance.  What is being recognized, slowly and without huge rhetorical counter-attack, is that there is, fortunately, no longer a single global hegemon, even as they remain desirous to attempt it.

Putin asked at the UN, “Do you know what you have done?” They have created an empire of chaos that serves certain sectors well but for the most part to a level of violence not witnessed for several generations, that could – if the right wing rhetoric and bluster of U.S. presidential candidates holds any meaning – could lead to the end of the world as we know it.  The mujahideen “freedom fighters” of Reagan have morphed through the Taliban to al-Qaeda into the current ISIS iteration.

These groups have all been supported by the U.S.:  certainly the mujahideen from which the Taliban; less so al-Qaeda other than as a useful ‘other’ as an excuse to combat on a global scale yet supported by long time ally, the medieval tribal monarchy of Saudi Arabia; and as can be extrapolated from current actions against ISIS who have proven to be a convenient destabilizer against Assad, receiving U.S. military aid indirectly through Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other partners.

As for France, it has been a willing partner in most if not all of these imperial endeavours.  Asymmetric warfare has brought those endeavours to the ‘homeland’.  France could have imposed martial law and locked the country down as more than likely would happen in the U.S. if a similar incident had occurred.  In Canada the response has been measured and compassionate, a decided change from what would have happened if Harper was still in power and able to ramp up the terrorist fear factor.  Fortunately, humanity also carries within itself an altruistic caring capacity towards others.

Just as the roots of terror lie within our own hands, so do the roots of an altruistic humanitarian outlook.  That includes all humanity, indeed all of the global environment, and if nourished properly can result in the eventual reset to a more compassionate and caring social structure.  I expect no miracles as the hatreds and animosities that have been developed by the control of the commons politically, financially, and militarily, presented with a subservient media, will not be easy to overcome.

What needs to be recognized is that we are all complicit partly through the acceptance of our lifestyles and what it is truly based on.  As individuals sometimes not much can be achieved, but it becomes an individual responsibility to question authority, to question the raison d’etre of our moral judgements, and to be prepared to do our own search for the truth, however painful that truth may be to predetermined ideologies.

Civilians in Paris have been killed because of these imperial drives for power, just as tens,  hundreds of millions before them have been killed in the past.  The human condition, its extremes of pathos and joy, requires a recognition of a global responsibility towards each and every ‘other’ that exists.  Take personal responsibility, think globally, act locally towards an era when perhaps the world will be at peace with one another.

Labor unrest and Washington’s threats involving participation in AGOA poses challenges for ANC government

Members of the National Education and Health Care Workers Union (NEHAWU), an affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), are defying an interdict (injunction) to end their strike and demonstrations at the Parliament building in Cape Town which has prevented the normal operations of legislative sessions.

Negotiations were halted on November 16 when the NEHAWU leadership reported that their member’s salaries were withheld due to their participation in the strike. The South African government is saying that the strike is illegal because the workers perform what is described as “essential services.”

One of the main issues in the dispute is centered on the way performance bonuses are calculated. Labor leaders say that talks to end the strike will not resume until the workers are paid their salaries from November 6 when the work stoppage began.

Parliament workers perform various functions including cleaning and catering to overseeing the efficient operations of the legislative committee meetings as well as access control at the visitors’ center. Consequently the strike has severely hampered the capacity of the parliament to function properly.

Sthembiso Tembe, the Parliament branch chairperson of NEHAWU, said “the strike is continuing.” A settlement earlier in the year involving at 9 percent pay increase did not encompass the issues related to performance bonuses. (News24)

Since November 9, workers have engaged in strike actions inside the parliament building resulting in the cancellation of legislative committee meetings. The strike action has been strengthened by numerous messages of solidarity and support including from COSATU.

Other statements of solidarity have been sent from the NEHAWU regional leadership, the South African Students Congress’s (SASCO) national executive committee and the chairperson the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in the province. A rally held on November 16 emphasized that the NEHAWU demands were non-negotiable.

Independent Online reported on the rally noting that “Workers gathered in the Old Assembly chamber on Monday (November 16) morning on day seven of their strike to hear messages of support from the NEHAWU leadership, ANC alliance partners, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).”

The newly-elected NEHAWU Ikapa South regional secretary Baxolise Mali told the crowd “We are going to have a national shutdown…we are very clear. We are not fighting the alliance, we are fighting the employer.”

Mali conveyed to the parliamentary staff that the time for negotiating with Parliament was over. “We are not negotiating. We have passed that stage,” he declared.

The latest action is the result of not only the outstanding labor issues going back to 2014 over pay levels but also the demand for the removal of parliamentary secretary Gengezi Mgidlana.

On November 11 police used stun grenades in clashes with the NEHAWU members marking the second time in a month where the Parliament building in Cape Town has been the scene of battles between students in October and now workers. Law-enforcement officers wearing full body armor carried away members of NEHAWU. “The police must go,” union members chanted as they held their ground on the front steps of parliament’s second house, the National Council of Provinces.

Parliamentary administrators are saying that the adoption of the demands of NEHAWU would be unsustainable. South Africa is already facing serious economic challenges including the rapid decline in the value of its currency.

An article published in News24 says “The financial implications of agreeing to the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) demands are unbudgeted for and unaffordable for Parliament given the shoestring budget it is managing, a parliamentary spokesperson said on Sunday (November 15). In a statement, a spokesperson said Parliament ‘is committed to continuing discussions’ with the union to ‘resolve the impasse which has seen the union embark on an illegal strike last week’”. (November 16)

Finance Minister Says Drought Will Compound Economic Crisis

At the G20 Summit held in Turkey, South African Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene spoke on the drought in the sub-continent which could impact agricultural production and consequently prompt a rise in prices for food and other consumer goods. The Southern Hemisphere is moving into the summer season and the lack of rain would destroy crops compounding the already precipitous decline in economic growth.

Nene told Reuters press agency in an interview delivered outside the conference meeting that the drought, “If it’s long, indeed it will have serious impact on food prices. It will have an impact on economic growth because agriculture is one of our focus areas. It would also have an impact on employment; it would have an impact on our revenues. We are bracing ourselves for the worst.” (November 15)

Problems with the state-owned Eskom utility agency have mounted over the last several months. Periodic power shortages and outages have compelled the government to take measures aimed at addressing the fall in consumer revenues from power generation.

The government response to the Eskom crisis includes the conversion of subordinated debt into equity, which Nene says has eased funding pressure. The utility agency has still not tapped into the roughly 50 billion rand (approximately $US3.5 billion) of financial banking guaranteed by the government.

Nene said of Eskom “They still have room to play. All of that gives them breathing space between now and the time they go out to the market again.”

Obama Threatens to Suspend Aspects of South African Participation in AGOA

As it relates to South African foreign policy and the deepening economic crisis inside the country, the administration of President Barack Obama is demanding changes in Pretoria’s trade policy which the White House says maintains barriers to United States access to domestic markets.

The Africa Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) was established during the latter period of the presidency of Bill Clinton. It is ostensibly designed to foster the export of capital to the continent while providing market access for products produced by both the U.S. and African nation-states.

If the U.S. removes key agricultural sectors from the agreements with South Africa it could cause further damage to the economy. Negotiations to resolve outstanding issues are ongoing while a January 1 deadline approaches.

In a statement issued by the South African Communist Party (SACP) on November 9, supporting the ANC government’s position in the negotiations, the party says that despite its commendable declarations “in reality, AGOA is imperialist both in terms of its content and strategic goal disguised under the fetishist illusion of ‘free market’. Its extraterritorial imperialist content is now being aggressively pushed by the U.S. against South Africa.”

This same statement from the SACP goes on to emphasize that “to allow the U.S. to prohibit ownership of economic assets by the state in our country is to allow it to usurp our constitutional right to democratic national sovereignty. This will be tantamount to handing over to U.S. imperialism our right to determine our own development trajectory and decide policies to achieve it. The SACP is strongly opposed to, and rejects, imperialist domination in its entirety and all its manifestations.”

The party also noted “South Africa’s independence must be safeguarded in the interest of the completion of our struggle for national liberation and social emancipation. Our democratic national independence and public property rights – the right to collective ownership of productive assets including through the state – are crucial to the success of our second, more radical phase of transformation!”

Such a stance by the Obama administration illustrates the real agenda behind AGOA and the overall foreign policy imperatives of the White House. South Africa has the inalienable right to determine its own economic program without the interference of Washington and Wall Street.

Washington and its French vassal have refined how they conduct their false flag operations. With the Charlie Hebdo operation, they knew to immediately set the story in stone in order to avoid any questions from the print and TV media and in order to use the set story to take the place of an investigation.

The set story made it unnecessary to explain the mysterious “suicide” of one of the main police investigators while engaged in the investigation of the event. The set story also made it unnecessary to explain why it was necessary to kill rather than capture the alleged perpetrators, or to explain how the French authorities could be so wrong about the alleged get-away-driver but not about the two gunmen. There has been no explanation why the authorities believed there was a get-away-driver, and no such driver has been captured or killed. Indeed, there are many unanswered questions of no interest to any media except the alternative Internet media.

What the US and France learned from the Charlie Hebdo skepticism on the Internet is to keep the story flowing. Charlie Hebdo involved two scenes of violence, and the connection between the two acts of terrorism was vague. This time there were several scenes of violence, and they were better connected in the story.

More importantly, the story was followed quickly by more drama, such as the pursuit of a suspected perpetrator into Belgium, a French bombing attack on the Islamic State, a French aircraft carrier sent to the Middle East, a declaration of war by the French President against ISIL, and speculation that Hollande, pressured by Washington, will invoke NATO’s Article V, which will pull NATO into an invasion of the Islamic State. By superceding each event with a new one, the public’s attention is shifted away from the attack itself and the interests served by the attack. Already the attack itself is old news. The public’s attention has been led elsewhere. How soon will NATO have boots on the ground?

The Western media has avoided many interesting aspects of the Paris attacks. For example, what did the directors of the CIA and French intelligence discuss at their meeting a few days prior to the Paris attacks. Why were fake passports used to identify attackers? Why did the attacks occur on the same day as a multi-site simulation of a terrorist attack involving first responders, police, emergency services and medical personnel? Why has there been no media investigation of the report that French police were blinded by a sophisticated cyber attack on their mobile data tracking system? Does anyone really believe that ISIL has such capability?

The Western media serves merely as an amplifier of the government’s propaganda. Even the non-Western media follows this pattern because of the titillating effect. It is a good story for the media, and it requires no effort.

Initially even the Russian media served to trumphet the set story that rescues the Western political establishment from politial defeat at home and Russian defeat in Syria. But it wasn’t too long before some of the Russian media remembered numerous false stories about a Russian invasion of Ukraine, about Assad’s use of chemical weapons, about US ABMs being placed on Russia’s borders to protect Europe from nonexistant Iranian nuclear ICBMs. And so on.

Russian media began asking questions and received some good answers from Gearoid O Colmain:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=215&ebc=ANyPxKqr8P2sln2JowUb7OtE9x-Uh73wTzgr_ROE6eJC640x6hFGrOs879tSr41gemYrY56XDSeGT0VlU_SSs6lWIcYel6SrWw&v=L7GAbVhjTSw

To understand the Paris attacks, it helps to begin with the question: “What is ISIL?”

Apparently, ISIL is a creation of the CIA or some deep-state organization shielded by the CIA’s operations department. ISIL seems to have been used to overthrow Gadaffi in Libya and then sent to overthrow Assad in Syria. One would think that ISIL would be throughly infiltrated by the CIA, Mossad, British and French intelligence. Perhaps ISIL is discovering that it is an independent power and is substituting an agenda of its own for Washington’s, but ISIL still appears to be at least partially dependent on support, active or passive, from Washington.

ISIL is a new group that suddenly appeared. ISIL is portrayed as barbaric knife-wielding fanatics from medieval times. How did such a group so quickly acquire such extensive global capability as to blow a Russian airliner out of Egyptian skies, conduct bombings in Lebanon and Turkey, outwit French intelligence and conduct successful multi-prong attacks in Paris? How come ISIL never attacks Israel?

The next question is: “How does the Paris attack benefit ISIL?”

Is it a benefit to ISIL to have Europe’s borders closed, thus halting ISIL’s ability to infiltrate Europe as refugees? Does it help ISIL to provoke French bombing of ISIL positions in the Middle East and to bring upon itself a NATO invasion?

Who does benefit?

Clearly, the European and American political establishment in so many ways.

Establishment political parties in France, Germany, and the UK are in trouble, because they enabled Washington’s Middle East wars that are bringing floods of refugees into Europe. Pegida is rising in Germany, Farage’s Independent Party in the UK, and Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France. Indeed, a recent poll showed Marine Le Pen in the lead as the next president of France.

The Paris attack takes the issue and the initiative away from these dissident political parties. Among the first words out of the mouth of the French president in response to the attack was his declaration that the borders of France are closed. Already Merkel’s political allies in Germany are pushing her government in that direction. “Paris changes everything,” they declare. It certainly saved the European political establishment from defeat and loss of power.

The same result occurred in the US. Outsiders Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were slaughtering the establishment’s presidential candidates. Trump and Sanders had the momentum. But “Paris changes everything.” Trump and Sanders are now sidelined, out of the news. The momentum is lost. The story has changed. “Paris attacks become focus of 2016 race,” declares CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/16/politics/paris-attacks-isis-2016-reaction/index.html

Also among the early words from the French president, and without any evidence in support, was Hollande’s declaration that the Islamic State had attacked the French nation. Obviously, it is set for Hollande to invoke NATO’s Article V, which would send a NATO invasion force into Syria. This would be Washington’s way of countering the Russian initiative that has saved the Assad government from defeat by the Islamic State. The NATO invasion would overthrow Assad as part of the war against the Islamic State.

The Russian government did not immediately recognize this threat. The Russian government saw in the Paris attack the opportunity to gain Western cooperation in the fight against ISIL. The Russian line has been that we must all fight ISIL together.

The Russian presence, although highly effective, is small in Syria. What does the Russian government do when its policy in Syria is crowded by a NATO invasion?

The only benefactor of the Paris attack is the Western political establishment and Washington’s goal of unseating Assad in Syria. The Paris attack has removed the threat to the French, German, and British political establishments from the National Front, Pegida, and the UK Independence Party. The Paris attack has removed the threat to the US political establishment from Trump and Sanders. The Paris attack has advanced Washington’s goal of removing Assad from power.

The answer to the Roman question, “cui bono,” is clear.

But don’t expect to hear it from the Western media.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books areThe Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

On this Monday morning, the CNN network is scrolling features about a “global manhunt” for those said to have been involved in the Paris attacks on Friday. Attackers are “at large”. The imaginary of global terror feasts yet again on the body of reason. But what should also be featured is a calming campaign against what is becoming a virulent assault on certain vulnerable persons. They did not dictate the narrative of Paris, but they are becoming its victims.

Where there are flows of people, there will always be suggestions of impropriety and poor character. The legitimate asylum seeker is stalked by suggestions that he or she takes the seed of tyranny, or criminality, with them. Australia’s Howard government throughout the 1990s and the first decade of 2000 made a long sport of it, arguing that refugees who sewed their lips up in protest were morally deficient, and dangerous to that unspecified concept called the Australian character.

At every given opportunity, statements were made to harden the Australian populace against these purported charlatans who were attempting to cash in on generous spirit in the antipodes. The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s office was stern about strategy towards those intercepted at sea, notably on the injunction against humanising the refugees.

Images of children being thrown overboard by desperate parents were manipulated. “I can’t comprehend,” feigned Howard in 2001, “how genuine refugees would throw their children overboard.”[1] Such a poison still lingers in the Australian body politic.

It is axiomatic that amidst tens of thousands of people, an enterprising bad egg, or moulding apple, will be found. Amongst the concentration camp survivors liberated as the Second World War neared its conclusion, the vigilant guards, sensing an opportunity, attempted to disappear into the crowd. Such an argument was never one to be used against liberating the survivors, let alone allowing refugees in. Nazis and Nazi collaborators did become migrants, as did genuine displaced persons.

It is that sort of argument, at least in some form, that is being used in attempting to further halt the refugee arrivals in Europe. It patterns all too neatly with the paranoid world view of former Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, who warned in the second Margaret Thatcher lecture at Guildhall that Europe, in embracing a “love your neighbour” policy was slipping into “catastrophic error”.

“The Australian experience proves that the only way to dissuade people seeking to come from afar is not to let them in.”[2] Turn them back, he was suggesting. Cut off arrival points. Close borders. Extend the gulag. The conservative Spectatormagazine cheered in Thatcherist approval.[3]

The challenge is proving most pressing being in such countries as Germany, which is becoming the “shock absorber” of Europe for those seeking refuge. There are broader matters at play as to why such large numbers are being accepted, not least an economic rationale fronted by German industry.

A bleaker social and security picture, however, is being pushed home by nervous sceptics, not least of all from the governing parties themselves. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies are seething, and the immediate aftermath of the attacks in Paris prompted sharp remarks by some members.

The point of contention here was the holder of a Syrian passport found near the body of one of the assailants who perished in the Friday night attacks. He had passed through Greece in October, according to Greek authorities. Not in itself conclusive of anything, but it was enough to link free movement with ISIS penetration even beforeresponsibility was ascertained. It was enough to suggest that open borders constituted open invitations to spread mayhem in Europe.

Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Soeder provided his few Euros worth on the topic: “The days of uncontrolled immigration and illegal entry,” he told Welt am Sonntag, “can’t continue just like that. Paris changes everything.”[4] Such dangerous nonsense slams the door on legitimate attempts to flee oppressive regimes, shifting the focus back on concepts of illegal entry. We cannot trust them, these strange creatures who do not abide by the protocols of processing.

Soeder had inspiration from Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union (CSU), who has called for a border clamp down. Soeder has, in turn, been listening to the railing statements of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who has told Merkel in no uncertain terms that there should be no “moral imperialism” at play here.

Orbán has seen his moment underscored in the Paris attacks. Blood has nourished his pan-European Christian rhetoric, a point he managed to put forth in his parliamentary address in Budapest titled “Attack on Europe.” Some of his initial words suggested that he would, in fact, draw a line between desperate refugee and opportunistic terrorist.  “In a deliberate and organised way, terrorists have exploited mass migration by mingling in the mass of people leaving their hopes of a better life.”[5]

Then, a truer picture emerges, one that has little to do with compassion, and everything to do with the orthodox righteousness of the nation state. “The right to self-defence is stronger than any other, we should not put European lives at risk on the basis of any kind of ideology or economic arguments.” Except, of course, the ideology of unquestioned sovereignty itself.

This then paved the way for Orbán to strike at apologists and the compassion brigade, a feint suggestion that they had collaborated in the project of undermining European security. “Those who said yes to immigration, who transported immigrations from warzones, those people did not do everything for the defence of European people.”

The dog whistling then became vehement. “We don’t think that everyone is a terrorist but no one can say how many terrorists have arrived already, how many are coming day by day.” Liberal Europe, deemed deluded in its compassion, under assault, and gradually giving way at the seams.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes

[1] http://www.safecom.org.au/kids-overboard.htm

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/28/tony-abbott-urges-europe-to-adopt-australian-border-policies

[3] http://new.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/the-moral-case-for-a-tough-line-on-migration/

[4] http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Paris-changes-everything-Bavarian-allies-pressure-Merkel-on-refugees-433129

[5] http://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/11/111893/jihadists-mingled-among-migrants-hungary-pm-says-after-paris-attacks

Attacks in Paris turn entire populations into suspects within imperialist states

A gathering of African leaders and European Union (EU) member-states in Malta has resulted in a proposed financial package of nearly $US4 billion which will ostensibly be utilized to halt the flow of migration from Africa to Europe.

European governments say they are willing to send funds to Africa so that people will not be interested in migrating to the continent. Such a program would in effect turn African presidents and prime ministers into the gatekeepers of Europe.

In 2015, the level of dislocation internationally is worse than any other period since the conclusion of World War II. In Syria alone, it is estimated that 11 million people have been displaced with four million outside the country in neighboring states and other regions.

People from not only Africa but the Middle East and Asia are flooding out of their geo-political areas seeking refuge from imperialist war and the burgeoning world crisis of capitalism. Rather than address the actual causes of dislocation, migration and the refugee problem, the imperialist states in Europe and their allies are seeking to contain the crisis within the oppressed nations which they have destroyed through centuries of enslavement, colonization, neo-colonization, super-exploitation and militarism.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants have crossed the Mediterranean into Southern, Central and Eastern Europe in recent months creating a humanitarian crisis and exposing the racist character of governments in the EU. Despite the offer of billions to stem the tide of migration, African leaders, even those with close political and economic ties to the imperialist states, have looked upon these proposals from the EU with skepticism and outright rejection.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Europe Editor Katya Adler wrote on November 13 that “in addition to NGO concerns…, African leaders widely dismissed EU offers of cash and other aid, as far too little to tackle the root causes of migration. As flowers go, the extra aid package doesn’t even make the gaudy plastic category.”

Somalian Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, the head of a state that is heavily dependent upon United States and EU funding for the 22,000-member African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), which handles its security along with U.S. and NATO intelligence advisors, was not impressed with the new offer of cash for containment. The experience of Somalia illustrates that western aid and military occupation does not necessarily translate into social stability and economic prosperity.

Adler noted that “Somalia’s distinctly unimpressed Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke put it to the BBC that Africa needed investment, not charity, to improve its economies. The same as the U.S., the EU or anywhere else in the world, he said.”

Moreover, the EU countries have not even been able to raise the funds for this proposed project with commitment being lukewarm apparently over doubts about the efficacy of such a program. Pledges of aid and other forms of assistance over the last two decades has done very little to halt migration when the foreign policies of these European states have largely been shaped by the U.S. in its so-called “war on terrorism.”

European Divisions Over Migration Continue

An escalation in the migratory pattern from Africa to Europe has accelerated during 2015 which has divided the EU politically. Hundreds of thousands of migrants are being trafficked across North Africa to the Mediterranean where countless numbers have died since January.

Migrants have been met with barriers and brutality in Eastern Europe where several governments are calling for a total ban on people originating in Africa, the Middle East and Asia from entering their countries. Images of desperate migrants being hosed with water cannon evoke sympathy for their plight as well as outrage over such treatment.

The same above-mentioned article by Adler says “Cross-border co-operation is disintegrating as barbed wire goes up and borders slam shut across Europe: in Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Sweden, Norway. Even Germany is toughening border regulations. In stark contrast to the warm welcome given to hundreds or thousands earlier this autumn, Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s hugely popular finance minister, has begun to mutter darkly about a migrant ‘avalanche’ engulfing his country. There’s little evidence of the EU – more of each country for itself.”

Continued divisions within the EU prompted Council President Donald Tusk to warn that Schengen, the EU agreement allowing passport-free border passage across much of Europe, is in danger of collapse. This accord has been championed internationally as major contributor to the integration of the continent.

Real Causes Neglected While Paris Attacks Reinforce Militarism and Racism

Nonetheless, the underlying issues of imperialist war and the global economic crisis are not being addressed by the EU relying instead on military and police solutions. This new scheme to fund African states to essentially imprison their own people will also collapse.

The attacks in Paris on November 13 that resulted in the deaths of approximately 130 people in a series of operations claimed by the Islamic State (IS) has prompted a security crackdown in France and other EU states. Socialist Party President Francois Hollande in a speech on November 16 called for the revision of the French constitution to allow even greater powers for intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.

Hollande immediately escalated France’s bombing of Syria. This response will create further dislocation both inside and outside of the embattled Middle Eastern state while the doors of migration will be further closed from Europe to the U.S., where politicians have already announced the denial of admission to Syrian nationals.

It has been the imperialist foreign policy led by Washington which has laid waste to huge swaths of territory throughout North and East Africa, extending into the Arabian Peninsula and down into Central and Southern Asia. The U.S. and NATO occupation of Afghanistan was carried out under the guise of fighting “Islamic extremism and terrorism.”

This war was a direct outcome of the efforts by the administration of President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to undermine the Soviet-allied socialist government in Afghanistan. With the fall of the Soviet Union and other Eastern and Central European socialist states, the emphasis of imperialism was shifted to the attempted realization of a “unipolar world”, where Washington and its allies in Western Europe would dominate military and economic power globally.

Consequently, the “war on terror” is a misnomer. The advent of many of the “extremist groups” is a direct product of imperialist foreign policy.

Retired President Fidel Castro, the former leader of the revolutionary island-nation of Cuba, charged in a column written on August 31, 2014 that leading U.S. political figures are responsible for the creation of IS. He condemned the war policies of Washington and issued a challenge for the modern period.

Castro asked

“Would it not be preferable to struggle to produce food and industrial products; build hospitals and schools for billions of human beings who desperately need them; promote art and culture; struggle against epidemics which lead to the death of half of the sick, health workers and technicians, as can be seen; or finally eliminate illnesses like cancer, Ebola, malaria, dengue, chikungunya, diabetes and others which affect the vital systems of human beings?” (Granma International)

The Cuban theorist and tactician concludes by inquiring whether “If today it is possible to prolong life, health and the productive time of persons, if it is perfectly possible to plan the development of the population in accordance with growing productivity, culture and development of human values, what are they waiting for to do so? Just ideas will triumph, or disaster will triumph.”

Although President Barack Obama said he opposes “endless war” and “America’s combat mission in Afghanistan may be over,” he announced that the 9,800 US troops presently there will remain. Obama had previously stated that he would cut the US force in half, but he has decided to maintain the current troop level until 2017.

Seventy years after the founding of the United Nations, armed conflict, especially US wars that violate the UN Charter, continues to plague the world. In 1945, the UN Charter was created “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” It forbids the use of military force except in self-defense after an armed attack by another state or when approved by the Security Council. Yet the three most recent US presidents have violated that command.

Bush, Clinton and Obama Circumvent the UN

In October 2001, George W. Bush led the US to attack Afghanistan, even though Afghanistan had not attacked the United States on 9/11. Nineteen men, 15 of whom came from Saudi Arabia, committed a crime against humanity. Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan did not constitute lawful self-defense and the Security Council did not approve the use of force. The US war on Afghanistan has replaced Vietnam as America’s longest war.

Two years later, before he invaded Iraq and changed its regime, Bush tried mightily to secure the imprimatur of the Security Council. Although the council refused to authorize “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” Bush cobbled together prior Security Council resolutions from the first Gulf War in an attempt to legitimize his illegitimate war. Bush’s war on Iraq was a disastrous gift that keeps on giving. It has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, led to the rise of ISIS, and dangerously destabilized the region.

John Bolton, Bush’s temporary UN ambassador (a recess appointment since the Senate would never have confirmed him) infamously declared, “There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that is the United States, when it suits our interest, and when we can get others to go along.” Bolton added, “When the United States leads, the United Nations will follow. When it suits our interest to do so, we will do so.”

Indeed, Bush’s predecessor could have helped prevent the genocide in Rwanda. But instead, Bill Clinton prevented the United Nations from acting to stop the killing of 800,000 people in that country. Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeline Albright, called the UN “a tool of American foreign policy.”

Barack Obama and his counterparts in France and Britain secured a resolution from the Security Council approving a no-fly-zone over Libya in 2011. But the three powers engaged in forcible regime change, ousting Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi. This went far beyond what the resolution authorized. That action has also contributed mightily to the current instability in the region.

The Libya resolution mentioned the emerging doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect.” This doctrine is contained in the General Assembly’s Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit. It is neither enshrined in an international treaty nor has it ripened into a norm of customary international law. Paragraph 138 of that document says each individual state has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Paragraph 139 adds that the international community, through the United Nations, also has “the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the UN Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”

But the United States and its allies have not utilized the Responsibility to Protect doctrine to protect the people of Gaza from massacres by Israel, most recently in the summer of 2014.

An Institution Created to Maintain the Power of WWII Victors

The objective of the victorious powers of World War II in creating the UN system was to make sure they would continue to control post-war international relations. The League of Nations, which the US had refused to join, had failed to prevent fascism and the Second World War.

In 1942, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and China – four of the permanent members of the Security Council (later joined by France) – had met at Dumbarton Oaks, near Washington DC. They hammered out the framework for the UN. A few months before the founding UN conference, the US, Britain and the Soviet Union met at Yalta in the Crimea and made important decisions about the post-war world, including the structure of the UN.

The United States made certain that the founding conference would be held on US soil, and it took place in San Francisco. In order to ensure that the US choreographed the meeting, the FBI spied on foreign emissaries and even on the US delegates themselves.

Stephen Schlesinger noted, “The US apparently used its surveillance reports to set the agenda of the UN, to control the debate, to pressure nations to agree to its positions and to write the UN Charter mostly according to its own blueprint.”

George Kennan, architect of the US containment strategy against the Soviet Union, didn’t pull any punches: “We have 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population … Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will allow us to maintain this position of disparity … We should cease to talk about the raising of the living standards and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.”

The Veto Power

Without the power to veto decisions of the Security Council, the US and the Soviet Union would not have joined the UN. One of the major sticking points during the conference was the scope of the veto power. Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans described the motivation behind giving the permanent members the power to veto decisions of the Security Council. He stated, “to convince the permanent members that they should adhere to the Charter and the collective security framework embodied therein, a deliberate decision was taken to establish a collective security system which could not be applied to the permanent members themselves.”

The Security Council has 15 members – five permanent members and 10 non-permanent members. The Soviet Union wanted the permanent members to have veto power over all decisions of the Security Council, which would have allowed them to prevent discussion about the peaceful settlement of disputes in which they were involved. A compromise was reached that gives the permanent members a veto only over “substantive” matters; the peaceful settlement of disputes is considered a “procedural” matter.

Religious groups feared the veto would permit the big powers to use their military might against the small nations without accountability. A group of prominent Protestant ministers called it “a mere camouflage for the continuation of imperialistic policies and the exercise of arbitrary power for the domination of other nations.”

Smaller countries, including Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Switzerland, Italy and the Vatican felt the proposed voting structure was not consistent with the sovereign equality of states and would place the permanent members above the law.

Interestingly, the word “veto” does not appear in the UN Charter. Article 27 says that decisions on procedural matters “shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members.” One permanent member can therefore exercise veto power by withholding a concurring vote.

Tensions With Latin American Countries

The US, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China, as the sponsoring powers of the conference, issued formal invitations. Fifty countries, primarily from the industrialized North, were represented at San Francisco. They comprised fewer than one-quarter of the countries of the world. About 35 were aligned with the US, five were allied with the Soviet Union, and 10 were non-aligned. At the time, most of the developing countries were colonies or semi-colonies.

During the conference, conflicts erupted between the big powers and countries in the South. The Latin American contingent was made up of 19 countries that had been non-belligerents during the War. But since they had declared war on the Axis countries by the deadline, they were allowed to join the UN.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) had a warm relationship with Latin America, stemming from his Good Neighbor Policy in the 1930’s. It provided for non-intervention and non-interference in the domestic affairs of the countries of Latin America. In return, the United States expected sweet trade agreements and the reassertion of US influence in the region. FDR died 13 days before the San Francisco conference, leaving Harry Truman to represent the US in negotiations over the UN Charter.

Although the Latin American countries proposed the inclusion of Brazil as the sixth permanent Security Council member, the US successfully prevented it.

The Latin bloc sought to establish its own regional security system apart from the UN. The Act of Chapultepec, which was developed at a prior Inter-American conference in Mexico City, said that an attack on one state in the region was an attack on all, which would result in immediate collective consultation and possible military action.

Objecting to a provision in the UN Charter that would give the permanent members the power to veto any action by a regional organization, the Latin countries advocated the principles of Chapultepec. The final draft of Article 51 of the UN Charter protects “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense.” In deference to the Latin bloc, “collective” is a reference to Chapultepec.

The US Opposes the Use of “International Law”

Article 2 provides, “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”

The original proposal stated that international law would determine what is “solely within the domestic jurisdiction” of a state. When the US Congress demanded that the words “international law” be removed, they were deleted.

Since then, not surprisingly, the United States has repeatedly violated international law in both the use of armed force and the killing of civilians, most recently in Obama’s drone war.

The US Dilutes the Jurisdiction of the World Court

The UN Charter established the International Court of Justice, or the World Court, as the judicial arm of the UN system. Would states have to submit to its jurisdiction? Truman said that if “we are going to have a court, it ought to be a court that would work with compulsory jurisdiction.” But after Secretary of State Edward Stettinius convinced Truman that the US Senate would never ratify an International Court of Justice statute with that provision, Truman relented. The court only has contentious jurisdiction over states that consent to its jurisdiction.

Indeed, when the International Court of Justice ruled in 1986 that the US had violated international law by mining Nicaragua’s harbors and supporting the Contras in their insurrection against the Nicaraguan government, the US thumbed its nose at the court, saying it was not bound by the ruling.

Whither the UN Charter?

For 45 years during the Cold War, the veto power paralyzed the Security Council. But after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the veto ironically turned the Security Council into a countervailing power to the US, as the council is the only international body that can legitimately authorize the use of military force.

And as stated above, Clinton, Bush, and Obama have circumvented or manipulated the Security Council, in violation of the UN Charter.

The United Nations has succeeded in some instances in slowing down an immediate resort to military force, although it has failed to broker a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or develop a treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons.

Nevertheless, the US government feels compelled to try to obtain the Security Council’s blessing for its military interventions. And although the US often uses armed force without Security Council approval, it is increasingly apparent to the countries of the world that the United States is a notorious lawbreaker.

Nick Buxton introduces the theme of an upcoming London talk on 25 November sponsored by Global Justice Now that will launch a new book, The Secure and the Dispossessed -How the Military and Corporations are shaping a climate-changed world

There is no shortage of words in the latest negotiating document for the UN climate negotiations taking place in Paris at the end of November – 32,731 words to be precise and counting. Yet strangely there is one word you won’t find: military. It’s a strange omission, given that the US military alone is the single largest user of petroleum in the world and has been the main enforcer of the global oil economy for decades.

The history of how the military disappeared from any carbon accounting ledgers goes back to the UN climate talks in 1997 in Kyoto.  Under pressure from military generals and foreign policy hawks opposed to any potential restrictions on US military power, the US negotiating team succeeded in securing exemptions for the military from any required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Even though the US then proceeded not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the exemptions for the military stuck for every other signatory nation. Even today, the reporting each country is required to make to the UN on their emissions excludes any fuels purchased and used overseas by the military.

As a result it is still difficult to calculate the exact responsibility of the world’s military forces for greenhouse gas emissions. A US Congressional report in 2012 said that the Department of Defense consumed about 117 million barrels of oil in 2011, only a little less than all the petrol and diesel use of all cars in Britain the same year. Deploying that oil across the globe to the fuel-greedy hummers, jets and drones has become a growing preoccupation of NATO military strategists.

But the responsibility of the military for the climate crisis goes much further than their own use of fossil fuels. As we witnessed in Iraq, the military, the arms corporations and their many powerful political supporters have consistently relied on (and aggressively pushed for) armed intervention to secure oil and energy supplies. The military is not just a prolific user of oil, it is one of the central pillars of the global fossil-fuel economy. Today whether it is in the Middle East, the Gulf, or the Pacific, modern-day military deployment is about controlling oil-rich regions and defending the key shipping supply routes that carry half the world’s oil and sustain our consumer economy.

The resulting expansion of conflict across the globe has consumed ever-increasing levels of military expenditure: in 2014, global military expenditure reached $1.8 trillion dollars. This money is a huge diversion of public resources that could be invested instead in renewable energy as well as providing support for those most affected by climate change. When the UK government in 2014 allocates £25 billion to the Ministry of Defence but only £1.5 billion to the Department of Energy & Climate Change, it is clear where its priorities lie.

Ironically despite their role in the climate crisis, one of the loudest voices calling for action on climate change is coming from the military. US Military Head of Pacific Command Samuel Locklear III is typical of a growing chorus of military generals identifying climate change as the major security challenge of this century. The generals have been echoed by politicians. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has argued that, “Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing our world. And it is not just a threat to the environment. It is also a threat to our national security, to global security…”

This could seem a welcome development. After all who would not want one of the most powerful forces on your side in tackling humanity’s greatest ever challenge? But there is a good reason also to be cautious of who we jump into bed with. A close look at military climate change strategies reveals that they are all about securing borders, protecting supply-routes for corporations, controlling conflicts around resources and instability caused by extreme weather, and repressing social unrest. They turn the victims of climate change into ‘threats’ to be controlled or combated. There is certainly no examination of the military’s own role in enforcing a corporate capitalism and fossil-fuel economy that has caused the climate crisis.

In fact, there is evidence that many players in this corporate-military-security industrial nexus are already seeing climate change not just as a threat but an opportunity. Arms and security industries thrive on conflict and insecurity and climate change promises another financial boon to add to the ongoing War on Terror. British arms giant BAE Systems was surprisingly open about this in one of their annual reports saying “New threats and conflict arenas are placing unprecedented demands on military forces and presenting BAE Systems with new challenges and opportunities.” An Energy Environmental Defence and Security (E2DS) conference in 2011 jubilantly proclaimed that “the aerospace, defence and security sector is gearing up to address what looks set to become its most significant adjacent market since the strong emergence of the civil/homeland security business almost a decade ago.”

One of the critical lessons for climate change movements in recent years has been an understanding that simply pressurising politicians to do the right thing will not deliver effective change. Instead we must target, delegitimise and undermine the corporations that are blocking change. As climate change impacts start to hit home, we must now widen our focus to stop these same forces now disturbingly seeking to profit from the consequences of climate change. As the Paris climate talks take the global stage, it’s time to draw attention to the military elephant in our room and demand that adaptation to climate change is led by principles of human rights and solidarity, rather than militarism and corporate profits.

These issues will be explored at the launch of Secure and Dispossessed – How the Military and Corporations are seeking to shape a climate-changed world (Pluto Press/TNI) held at 6:30pm on Wednesday 25 November in Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Rd, London EC1R 3GA. Book your free ticket here.

Award-winning author and Professor of Economics Michel Chossudovsky

will be speaking at Beit Zatoun Cultural Centre in Toronto. 

This event will also launch Prof. Chossudovsky’s latest book: The Globalization of War: America’s Long War against Humanity 

Who is Behind ISIS?

The Globalization of War

UPDATE: In the light of the tragic events in Paris, Professor Chossudovsky will also be reviewing in Toronto the alleged role of the Islamic State in the Paris terrorist attacks. For further details see:  

The Paris Terrorist Attacks, “9/11 French-Style”, “Le 11 septembre à la française”By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, November 14, 2015.

*      *      *

While Al Qaeda and their affiliates, including the Islamic State (ISIS), are routinely presented as terrorists threatening the “Free World”, most media fail to mention that they were recruited and trained by the CIA, Mossad and others.

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The United States and its allies have launched a global military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

America’s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 era is the “Globalization of War” whereby the U.S.-NATO military machine —coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime change”— is deployed in all major regions of the world. The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.

This “Long War against Humanity” is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history.

It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of the World population.

The ultimate objective is World conquest under the cloak of “human rights” and “Western democracy”.

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author and Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa. He is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website, a cutting-edge, independent research and media organization.  He is the author of: The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order, America’s War on Terrorism, and Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War.  He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Brittanica; his writings have been published in more than twenty languages.  

This event will also launch Prof. Chossudovsky’s latest book: The Globalization of War: America’s Long War against Humanity, Global Research Publishers, Montreal, ISBN 978-0-9737147-6-0, 2015  240 pages.